You did a lot of things right and managed to retrofit and commission your ballast water treatment system (BWTS) on schedule and within budget, but are you really proud of yourself for saving peanuts and going with galvanized pipe?

Every BWTS is always advertising “The smallest foot print” or the “Most compact design”. How do you think they managed to get the system so small and still maintain the required capacity? In general, they just made all the pipes and components smaller and made the flow rates faster. It is apparent in the BWTS component design when you see all the super duplex stainless (that you just connected up with cheap galvanized pipe).

I hope significant pipe renewal was put in your OPEX budget since the BWTS did not use expensive corrosion resistant materials in their components because they look nice!

If you spent the money to have your engine room scanned (smart move) and you pre-fabricated all the pipes and spools before the docking to reduce the installation timeline (another smart move), then why didn’t you have all the pipes polyethylene (PE) lined before delivering them to the dockyard?

This is the difference between having a long lasting, maintenance free system and a recurring maintenance nightmare as you eventually renew every damn pipe in the system before the next docking.

Rotationally lined pipes are the gold standard for seawater systems and BWTS retrofits since they have a similar life span as GRE/GRP pipes, but are more robust and less costly. The PE rotational lining process can reliably handle the difficult geometries of elbows, branches and small branches found in BWTS retrofits.

As you consider your next retrofit, I also hope you will consider that Irwin Marine Services will offer a 10 year replacement guarantee on fabrication and PE lining of any piping system where isometrics can be provided for the fabrication.

Call David Schaus at +852 5128 3422 or email David.Schaus@irwin.com.hk