Meeting ballast tank regulations

摘要

New IMO protective coatings regulations create new problems for inspectors. From 1 July this year, new International Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations, MSC.215(82) and MSC.215(84), focusing on performance standards for protective coatings (PSPC) for salt water ballast tanks, come into effect. This resolution, for newbuildings, poses a number of new issues for coatings inspectors, according to John Fletcher, technical support manager at Elcometer Instruments Ltd, a manufacturer and supplier of inspection equipment for the coatings industry. To illustrate the problem, a 333m length overall, 20m draught, 58m beam VLCC, will have ballast tanks that need coating with a large area of approximately 300,000m~2. Each flat area needs five spot readings, according to the SSPC PA2 standard for coating thickness measurement, and each is the average of three readings per 10m~2. Mr Fletcher goes on to calculate the outer surface area of a typical VLCC is approximately 41,000m~2.