With the forthcoming implementation of the Global Sulphur Cap, new ballast water management requirements and the drive to lower global CO2 emissions, the industry has never been so focused on meeting its environmental obligations.
However, challenging markets, continuing vessel oversupply and tentative economic growth means that ship operators and owners are having to manage their operations in ever more intelligent and efficient ways.
Whatever type of ship, size or shape they all have one thing in common; hull performance plays a vital part in a vessel’s operational efficiency. Biofouling can be divided into micro and macro, and both have a significant impact on the hydrodynamics of a ship. Biofouling starts with a bio film or slime layer of bacteria that begin to accumulate as soon as the vessel is in water. Once established, other larger organisms can adhere to the hull and grow. Macro biofouling includes hard fouling such as barnacles, molluscs and tube worms, difficult and damaging to remove, while micro fouling covers organisms such as seaweed, algae, slimes and sponges etc., all of which are easier to remove and cause less damage.
Biofouling can reduce hull efficiency by up to 40 per cent, and the increased drag resulting from bio fouling means higher fuel consumption to maintain the desired speed, and higher fuel consumption means higher costs and increased fuel emissions.
Biofouling not only affects the ability of the vessel to cut through the water in an efficient manner, it can also act as a vector for the translocation of invasive species. This is something national governments are increasingly aware of.
For any ship operator or owner, effective antifouling is now a basic operational imperative. However, hull coatings are increasingly complex. The days of just painting a vessel hull with standard issue paint to protect it from corrosion and fouling are long gone. Today’s vessel coatings are the result of decades of science and chemistry research and development.
Historically, antifouling coatings have contained high levels of biocides, but their adverse effects have meant that in recent years much of the industry has sought other less damaging but effective solutions. One such option are fouling defence coatings, which make it difficult for fouling to physically attach to a hull in the first place, but often these coatings work best on a vessel with high activity maintaining an optimum speed, today’s market conditions and vessel oversupply means that slow steaming is common, and the time that a ship might be idle between layup is increasing.
Leading global coatings manufacturer Hempel launched Hempaguard® in 2013, in direct response to rising bunkering costs and tightening environmental regulations. Hempaguard is an innovative fouling defence product containing 95 per cent less biocide than traditional antifoulings, offering outstanding resistance to fouling during idle periods (of up to 120 days) thereby providing shipowners with maximum trading flexibility.
Hempaguard retains its effectiveness when switching between slow and regular steaming and is suitable for all vessel types and even more compelling, it offers a proven fuel efficiency saving of around six per cent compared to best-in-class antifoulings over the entire service interval. It was the first product to use Hempel’s patented low friction Actiguard® fusion technology which integrates silicone-hydrogel and full diffusion control of biocides in a single coating.
Five years on, Hempaguard has now been applied to more than 1000 ships. Its fuel saving properties have helped to reduce the annual bunker bill for the owners and operators of those 1000 ships by more than USD 400 million, while cutting the corresponding CO2 emissions by more than three million tonnes each year.
Increasingly the longer term market pressures are driving shipowners to implement further energy efficient solutions that are both environmentally sustainable and boost their competitiveness. In direct response, Hempel launched its new Systems for Hull and Propeller Efficiency (SHAPE) at the beginning of this year.
Based on the ISO 19030 framework, SHAPE combines hull and propeller efficiency optimisation, while offering expert advice and continuous improvement solutions to every ship owner. This helps them to refine and maximise their performance analysis, while offering advice on maximising hull efficiency and return on investment, backed up with solid data.
SHAPE can monitor the vessel’s long term trends using in service key performance indicators (KPIs). Currently, only 15 per cent of the world’s fleet can meet the strict requirements of ISO 19030 part 2, but by using SHAPE, transparent performance monitoring and analysis can be made available and accessible to many more ship owners and operators.
With its innovative and industry leading range of coatings and the SHAPE performance monitoring, Hempel offers more than performance monitoring, it offers comprehensive fuel efficiency intelligence. Such an invaluable tool and analysis streamlines and boosts any work to achieve operational efficiencies while ensuring environmental compliance, offering a much needed and highly valued competitive edge in the current climate.
By Andreas Glud, Group Segment Manager, Marine, Dry Dock, Hempel A/S