F.A.Q.

Yes, our system ticks all the boxes that are required to conducted in water hull cleaning as outlined in the In-water hull cleaning guidelines that are currently used in QLD.

All our operations are coordinated with the various local stakeholders and authorities to ensure that there is positive communication with everyone involved. This prevents issues down the line and overall assure a safer, more efficient operation for our client as well as our crew.

Yes, for all container and bulk vessels we can operate whilst cargo is being loaded and unloaded. There are some limitations when working tankers depending on the nature of the cargo since safety is paramount in all our operations.

Yes, the ROV is equipped with strong LED lighting which allows for work at any time of the day and helps us work in very limited visibility.

No, the ROV is controlled remotely from the safety of our own vessel which further increases the overall safety of this type of operation.

This is of course dependent on the size of vessel and the growth that is encountered/ condition of the hull coating. As a rule of thumb, a vessel around 200m LOA can be cleaned in 10hrs or less for vertical sides and a total of 16hrs or less if the flat bottom is cleaned as well.

That is dependent on what you want to achieve with the clean. If you try to be compliant with New Zealand’s MPI regulation than it would be advisable to clean all flat surfaces. Beyond that you might want to consider to engage our sister company KW DIVE to conduct a full inspection to MPI NZ standards and if necessary to arrange an offshore operation to clean the niche areas as well.

if you are purely interested in fuel savings that more likely than not a vertical side clean will give you the best bang for your buck. Due to the availability of UV along your sides these are the areas the see the heaviest soft fouling which in turn increases the drag coefficient of your vessel.

In rare cases there can be sufficient growth on the flat bottom as well that it would affect your fuel consumption significantly.

No, unfortunately not, since this ROV “drives” along your hull it is limited to what it can access in that manner. We are able to inspect the bilge keels but not clean them and we can inspect the sea chest grates and, in some cases, clean those.

For any more niche related work scopes we have founded KW DIVE to ensure that this aspect of hull husbandry can also be taken care of in-house to create a one-stop solution.

To comply with the Australian laws, we must show that our systems capture the material that is being cleaned. At present there are no systems in QLD available that can fulfill this criterion when cleaning niches with divers. Hence any niche clean operations must be undertaken offshore.