The Contents of the Coating Technical File
Latest industry news and reports from Safinah Ltd - August 2007
IMO MSC.215(82) – Performance Standard for Protective Coatings For Dedicated Seawater Ballast Tanks in all Types of Ships and Double-Sided Skin Spaces of Bulk Carriers.
There has been much concern expressed by Safinah clients as to what the IMO resolution requires from the yard in terms of a Coating Technical File (CTF).
The needs of the CTF are covered in section 3.4 stating:
Specification of the coating system applied to the dedicated seawater ballast tanks and the double side skin spaces, record of the shipyard’s and shipowner’s coating work, detailed criteria for coating selection, job specification, inspection, maintenance and repair*.
*Guidelines to be developed by the Organisation.
Throughout the rest of the resolution document, reference is made to items that should be in the CTF. Having reviewed the resolution, Safinah propose the following as the necessary contents of a CTF.
The shipyard should provide:
- A statement of agreement between owner/yard and paint company for this contract. That is they all agree on how the vessel will be coated and the procedures and equirements of IMO MSC.215(82).
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The paint company specification as issued to the yard including key criteria and data sheets including:
- Product name and identification mark or number
- Materials, components and composition of the coating system, colours
- Minimum and maximum Dry Film Thickness
- Application methods, tools and/or machines
- Condition of surface to be coated
- Environmental limitations
- Statement of conformance or test certificate of the coatings provided by the paint company.
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Shipyard summary work records
- A summary of the coating works carried out by tank including a summary of non-conformities and their close out. This log to be supplied by the approved coating inspector*
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Shipyard work records including
- Applied actual space and area (in square meters) of each compartment
- Applied coating system
- Time of coating and thickness, number of coats etc.
- Ambient conditions during coating
- Method of surface preparation
- Non-conformance reports and repair work
- Yard procedures for inspection, application and repair during new building including treatment of join up areas.
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Ship yard inspection report including
- Completion date of the inspection
- Result of the inspection
- Remarks if any
- Inspector signature
The paint company should provide:
- Planned maintenance procedures for in-service maintenance and repair of the coating
The Administration should provide:
- Approval of the agreement signed by the yard/owner/supplier
- Audit the CTF for sign off
- Sign off of the CTF
*Approved coating inspector – Must be FROSIO or NACE qualified or equivalent. The inspector may be a yard/owner or paint company employee or a third party independent.
There has been much speculation as to how all these documents will be reviewed and managed by the yard and then on board by the owner.
Safinah has been working with partners in the ECO-Dock project to develop a software solution for this that would enable the yard to collect all this information electronically and automatically produce the CTF either in an electronic format or hard copy. The concept is that most of the documents would be available electronically and could be imported. The inspection data could be collected electronically and also inputted to the system. The system would also form the basis for continued planned maintenance records on board the vessel.
The benefit of the digital approach is that the CTF once created can be locked to prevent changes after approval by the administration and allow retrieval of data quickly and accurately in the future should a history of the new building process be required. Below is a diagram showing the vision for the electronic CTF system. Safinah are in the process of developing such a system that simplifies the time and effort required to collate the data, create and store all the information required by the CTF.
Safinah runs a one day seminar in conjunction with the Royal Institution of Naval Architects on PERFORMANCE STANDARDS FOR BALLAST TANK COATINGS. The next seminar is to be held in conjunction with ShipRepair & Conversion 2007 at the National Hall, Olympia, London on 10 October 2007.
Register at www.rina.org.uk/ballasttankcoatings
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