Ship owners must take care if they are to avoid buying and installing ballast water management systems with high flaw rates. Stevie Knight of Motorship magazine explores recently exposed reliability challenges [with shipyards choosing & installing ballast water management systems (BWMS)].
DiCianna notes that when Choice Ballast has carried out inspections on failures, one of the key findings was that there had been substitutions during installation, swapping minor but still important components sometimes for non-marine grade items. “A few BWMS manufacturers have reported similar issues with yards that have actually given unused components back,” she says.
To get the industry over this hump, ship owners are going to have to take control and start making choices for themselves. However, DiCianna explains “it’s really important for owners to understand the technical details, pumps and ballast capacities, maximum flow and possible limitations.” Along with this there’s the effects of turbidity, salinity, temperature and a whole host of other parameters.[1]
To see the entire article go click here.
[1] Stevie Knight, https://www.motorship.com/news101/ballast-water-management/bwms-dont-go-with-the-flow, Nov. 2018
