Marine, Yacht and Offshore Coatings

With the rising price of maritime fuel at an all time high, one of the biggest challenges facing boat and ship owners today is reducing fuel costs. In order to accomplish this goal ship-owners need to take a multi-faceted approach to hull maintenance by managing fouling growth through coating selection, hull treatment in drydock and maintenance of the coating when the ship returns to sea.

"It is important for a ship owner or ship manager to have a hyper-awareness of the relationship between type of coating and long-term fuel consumption," said Daniel Kane, vice president business development at Propulsion Dynamics Inc. The company has developed the CASPER hull efficiency computer program, which analyzes hull efficiency of ships by collecting performance data while it is making its voyage and conducts a hydro-dynamic comparison of the same type of data from sea trials.

"The results will show what penalty, in terms of speed and fuel consumption, the ship is suffering as compared to its voyage at sea trials when the vessel had the cleanest, smoothest hull," said Kane. "The analysis is performed on a continual basis with monthly reports submitted to the