Over the last couple of months a number of vessels have had their rudders coated with Ecoshield at shipyards in China. These include several container vessels and a car carrier. The applications will protect the rudders against cavitation and corrosion damage for the remainder of the vessels’ service lives.
Proof of this has been given over the last couple of years by numerous case studies. Last month we wrote about m/v Maersk Deva which came into drydock five years after application without having to replace Ecoshield. More recently another container vessel drydocked in Shanghai. The vessel had been sailing with Ecoshield on its rudder for two years and the coating was still in excellent condition. No repaint or even touch-up was required.
Most of these ships belong to different owners, but they had all experienced firsthand the devastating effect of cavitation on rudders coated with a traditional coating system. For this reason they decided to use Ecoshield to ensure lasting protection against corrosion and erosion damage for the rudders of their vessels.
The coating provides the rudder with an impenetrable protective layer. At the same time its toughness and flexibility enables absorption of the forces that are produced by cavitation. This prevents the damage normally caused by this phenomenon.
Ecoshield’s flexibility makes it easy to adapt the application to the rest of the activities scheduled at the shipyard or drydock so as not to interfere with these. Overcoating time can be as short as three hours, which means that for smaller surfaces such as rudders or bow thrusters the two coats required can usually be applied in one single day.
Ecoshield is also ideally suited for other areas prone to cavitation erosion or other damage, such as propeller nozzles, thruster tunnels, the bulbous bow or stabilizer fins.
“Jo”
