Shipshave: Industry’s first hull cleaning system for commercial ships in transit

The idea of cleaning hulls of vessels in transit is now becoming a reality with the innovative system developed by Norwegian company Shipshave. In an interview with Offshore Energy – Green Marine, the company revealed that it already plans to test the system on ultra-large vessels and ambitiously eyes high market share.

The In-Transit Cleaning of Hulls (ITCH) system — that is nearing commercialisation — is the only one to be applied by the crew while a ship is sailing.

“As far as we know Shipshave is the only entity able to provide the industry with a solution operating in transit. It is also the first solution where it is the vessel’s own crew that will do the work and not expensive specialists,” Eirik Eide, Sales and Marketing Manager at Shipshave, told our publication.

Eide explained that this solution is hassle-free and cost-efficient compared to established techniques requiring the vessel to be nonproductive.

He further said that ITCH allows the crew to clean the hull and dispose of removed fouling far from shores to avoid invasive species disturbing marine life.

Shipshave ITCH is a semi-autonomous hull cleaning robot. A winch on the foredeck of the vessel tethers the robot. The robot is equipped with soft brushes, harvests propulsion energy to clean the vertical sides of the hull underwater and sweeps up and down. It travels with a defined pattern with controlled brush forces.

Specifically, the system is intended to be proactively applied before fouling becomes a real problem. However, it is proven also to remove settled fouling by repetitive operations, Shipshave claims.

The Shipshave plug & play system may be installed by the vessel’s crew. It requires electrical power and 1 square metre on the foredeck for the winch.

“The only preparation is really to secure a small electrical winch on the foredeck. Then you are ready to commence operation,” Eide said.

Crew member A operates the winch on the foredeck. Crew member B pulls out the towing line attached to the ITCH aft and stops fore of the propeller area. Prior to the deployment, the ITCH will be programmed to swipe vertically between two water depths.  

Once the ITCH is deployed, the winch is set to spool in automatically creating the horizontal movement along the hull. The crew members maintain watch to ensure that the process proceeds without disruptions until the ITCH breaks the waterline by the foreship.

When it comes to monitoring the cleaning process, Eide said that after the cleaning, the crew can upload video footage taken by the integrated camera. This is used for inspection of the hull and the cleaning works.

When asked if there are any limitations of the ITCH system, Eide replied:

“Cleaning propellers, rudders and niche areas are obvious areas that Shipshave ITCH cannot cover. We cannot clean ships that are not moving.”

Offshore Energy – Green Marine also wanted to know if there are any risks associated with the cleaning process. According to Eide, “the biggest risk would be a loss of the ITCH robot in case of failure of the rope.”

“We find it difficult to foresee any damage caused by ITCH,” he added.

Disposal of biofouling near coastlines is considered to be a huge problem for marine life due to alien species. Studies have shown that biofouling can be a significant factor in transferring invasive aquatic species. For this reason, the disposal of biological waste generated by the cleaning process is subject to numerous national and international laws and regulations.

Biofouling on ships may result in creating invasive aquatic species which negatively affect not only animal, plant but also human life.

However, Shipshave ITCH is intended for use in deep waters. This solution removes fouling, growth or algae while the vessel is sailing, far away from the coastline.

“This means that the marine life along coastlines will not be impacted,” Eide pointed out.

He added that, in this way, port permission is not needed for the cleaning process and that an environmentally unfriendly impact from operations is avoided.

Apart from protecting marine life, the system is supporting the industry’s ambition to become more sustainable in other ways as well.

“Fuel efficiency and invasive species are the most obvious issues. However, more frequent and gentle cleaning reduces wear on antifouling. It may avoid thousands of tonnes of microplastics and heavy metals released to the oceans and permit use of hard antifouling,” Eide continued.

The ITCH system is said to have very few limitations on what vessels it may be applied. The benefit/cost equation is very positive for most ships, according to Eide.

“We believe that we can clean most vessels, and in the coming months, we will work with shipowners to verify our expectations. The swiping motion is quick, and our goal is to be able to clean any size of ship within a working shift,” Eide stressed.

So far, the system has been tested on a bulker and a platform supply ship. During the test which was performed on a 5,780 dwt bulker, the ship had 2.5 years old biofouling, predominantly ‘green grass’. The Shipshave ITCH was tested successfully at a speed of up to 10.5 knots. The picture below shows the cleaned red antifouling and the uncleaned areas with green growth.

The second test was performed on a 5,000 dwt PSV. The ship had 3 years old biofouling, predominantly black algae. The Shipshave ITCH was tested successfully in a speed environment of up to 12.5 knots. The picture clearly shows the cleaned red antifouling and uncleaned black areas.

“COVID-19 has impacted the world in a big way that only a few could foresee in February this year. We had concrete plans to test the system on a North Sea shuttle tanker, but this was paused do the challenges the owners were facing,” Shipshave’s Sales and Marketing Manager commented.

“We are not resting and are currently in dialogue with owners to test (the system) on some big ladies,” he revealed.

These big ships include an LNG tanker, a Capesize bulker, various offshore vessels of different sizes and dry cargo ships.

Speaking about the interest of shipowners in Shipshave ITCH, Eide said:

“We are met with unambiguous positive feedback where owners are keen to let us test for fine-tuning of the product.”

“Despite the predominant negative news broadcasting we are subjected to, we have a positive outlook! We see interest from shipowners because they want the fuel efficiency to be within the contract.”

“We are currently looking to complement our team by recruiting resources thinking out of the box yet simplistic.”

As disclosed, there are approximately 50,000 commercial vessels that could benefit from Shipshave ITCH.

“Although we do not believe that Shipshave’s ITCH will be on all the vessels, we aim for a large market share,” Eide stated.

Shipshave intends to focus on the markets where the biggest potential fuel savings are, as well as the segments with the biggest desire to reduce fuel consumption. These two segments may not always align since the initiative to save fuel may originate with the entity paying for the fuel, Eide clarified.

“Due to travel restrictions, we focus on domestic clients. In my 25 years in this industry, advancements in shipping technology have typically been established in the domestic market and later widely spread.”

At present, there is a growing number of idled ships, in cold or warm layup due to the coronavirus pandemic affecting the entire industry. Expressing his opinion on how this situation would impact the demand for hull-cleaning, Shipshave’s Sales and Marketing Manager said:

“Idle ships and the general financial situation impact the number of vessels trading the oceans. How it will impact Shipshave is too early to say.”

“We believe that the entities paying for fuel may be more cost-conscious post the ongoing turmoil and therefore might wish to use Shipshave ITCH to reduce the OpEx,” he concluded.