Robotic hull cleaning allows uninterrupted operations

Fleet Cleaner’s technology, which incorporates a waste water removal and treatment system, allowed the hull of Spliethoff’s mv Fagelgracht to be cleaned underwater without divers.

Karel van Zijl of Spliethoff’s business development department, said: “A clean hull helps to reduce drag and therefore reduces fuel costs and CO2 emissions significantly.”

Rotating waterjets

The cleaning robot is equipped with rotating high pressure waterjets, which do not damage the coating, unlike brushes.

Due to its navigation system, the robot requires only a small distance between the berthed vessel and the quay to clean both vertical sides quickly and with no downtime for the vessel’s operations.

Fleet Cleaner said its method saves significant time compared to alternative cleaning methods with divers, where the ship has to be anchored outside ports, thus resulting in extra costs.

Propeller polishing

The company secured its first in-port contract with the Chiquita België vessel in the Port of Flushing earlier this year.

Fleet Cleaner has teamed up with various subcontractors to enable hull cleaning services to be combined with propeller polishing, which reduces fuel consumption even more for the shipping company, as well as class certified under water inspection by divers in order to extend dry docking.

In May this year, Fleet Cleaner expanded its hull cleaning services to all ports in the Netherlands on a 24/7 basis.