China: X-mile Low Friction Anti-Fouling Paint Applied on MV Mol Creation

MV Mol Creation (316.00 X 45.6M) owned by MOL company, berthed alongside CIC Changxing Shipyard in late April 2012 and started her half month repair period. The main work scope was to apply the new generation of X-mile low friction anti-fouling paint on hull. The application of this new paint required the vessel to be dry docked for ten days.

It was difficult for the shipyard to arrange such a long docking period when the dock slot arrangement was extremely tight. While, in order to maintain the good relationship with MOL, the yard tried to give its best to arrange a 10-day dock space for the subject vessel.

X-mile low friction anti-fouling paint supplied by NYM Coatings Co.,Ltd is a new generation silly anti-fouling paint, provided with lower friction resistance, better anti-crack property, environmentally friendly, self-polishing efficiency and long anti-fouling property. As for the requirements on the operating equipments, the spray pipe should be new and the spray nozzles were supplied from Japan by the owners. When applying the special paint, it needs 2-3 more hours paint than the normal paint, because it requires to clean the aerial frog on the hull surface before every coat. The interval time between two coats is around normally 8-10 hours respectively, while the drying time for the last coat is 84 hours.

Along with the depressed market, the owner pays more attention to the paint. But it also brings a new challenge for the yard to handle the painting work which requires longer time in dock than usual.

[mappress]
Source: cic-shipyards, May 10, 2012;