Bulk carriers are used extensively to transport cargo across countries. They are used to carry a wide variety of goods such as grain, coal, cement, steel, rice and more. Thus, it is important to keep these ships safe during the journey. Sometimes, loading arrangements in these ships can cause great forces at the end of the holds, thus, at the side shell towards the bulkheads additional strengthening is required. Plus, hatches with large capacities are also attached to facilitate fast loading and unloading of the goods. Therefore, it is important to enhance the safety of these ships in every way possible to avoid any emergency.
If you are considering buying a RoPax ferry for sale or any other bulk carrier, then here are a few points that you should know. Also, make sure to buy a good quality RoPax ferry.
Water ingress alarm
A water ingress alarm helps to bring to the notice any incident of water ingress, which may corrupt or taint the goods on the bulk carrier. For instance, if goods like sugar or rice accidentally come in contact with water, they can be tainted, and the goods can get rejected. Therefore, maintaining a water ingress alarm according to standard instructions, such as when the water level reaches beyond the inner bottom and reaches a height of about 0.5 m should be notified with both audible and visual alarms.
Conduct hull inspection
A proper hull inspection according to IACS’s conditions would help to maintain the ship’s hull strength. Therefore, before loading the goods, it is essential to conduct a thorough hull inspection of the ship. Also, if any issue related to the hull is noticed, then it must be addressed and solved, and only then the ship should be allowed to voyage out.
If you are thinking of buying a RoPax ferry for sale, then make sure you buy a good quality ship that is sturdy and well-built. To buy such a ship, you can get in touch with a good ship broker.
Maintain water tightness
To prevent water ingress, it is important to ensure that all the hatch covers are tightly placed, and they are properly maintained. With the help of hatch cover tapes, situations of water ingress can be avoided totally. Further, to test the tightness of these hatch covers, they are subjected to a high-water pressure jet through a fire hose.
Anti-corrosion paint
The ship’s body can be subjected to corrosion, this is because the ship body is exposed to a great amount of stress that is caused by the sea and this can damage the structural integrity of the ship. To avoid such problems and keep the ship’s body protected applying quality anti-corrosion paint can help. The paint should not only be applied on the hull of the ship but also, to the other parts of the ship should be applied as the entire ship is vulnerable to the force of nature.
Keep free-fall lifeboat
Keeping an adequate free-fall lifeboat will increase the safety of the passengers and crews on the ship. Therefore, it is necessary to keep free-fall lifeboats on such ships. Further, it must be kept in mind that just keeping a free-fall lifeboat is not where the owner’s responsivity ends, it is also important to maintain the system that is holding the lifeboats, for instance, the gripes, davit, and other moving parts. If these parts are not maintained properly, they might get jammed, and during an emergency fail to respond. So, such issues should not be overlooked, and proper care must be taken to keep such systems active.
Conclusion
There are many ways in which a bulk ship’s weight can be increased. In this blog, we have mentioned some of the best ways in which the safety of these ships can be increased. So, if you are someone who is planning to buy a RoPax ferry for sale soon, firstly should invest in a robust ship in this category, and can also follow these tips to further increase the safety of such ships. Also, to buy a good RoPax ferry, you can get in touch with a good ship broker.
