A number of shipowners have noticed zero cavitation damage and failure, compared to equipment coated with other protective systems.
Ecoshield safeguards propulsion systems and steering gear against cavitation and corrosion damage throughout the vessel’s service life.
According to Miltos Synefias, technical director, Pleiades Shipping Agents, who first applied the coating in 2013 to the rudder of the 2006-built Panamax tanker ‘Evrotas’; “The results made the choice to extend the coating to other vessels obvious.”
Since then, Subsea Industries completed Ecoshield applications to the rudders and thruster nozzles of a further nine Pleiades vessels. Some have since been drydocked and it was found that their rudders and nozzles had experienced zero cavitation damage and did not need to be recoated.
“Hydrodynamic cavitation causes damage to rudders and thrusters often resulting in serious erosion, pitting and sometimes complete failure of equipment. However, just one Ecoshield application to equipment affected by the phenomenon prevents cavitation and corrosion damage throughout the vessel’s operational life,” said Subsea Industries’ production executive and NACE coating inspector, Manuel Hof. “The confidence we have in our hard coating technologies is backed up with a 10-year performance guarantee.”
“We now have more than 400 ship references for Ecoshield on rudders but we are also seeing a marked increase in application to thruster tunnels and gearboxes,” said Hof. “More and more owners are specifying the coating because they know the savings it will bring them.”
Recently shipyards in China, Romania, Turkey, the US, the UK and France have applied the Ecoshield coating to rudders and thrusters of a number of vessels, the company said.