What is beaching ?

What is Beaching of the ship?

1. Whenever there is an emergency and it becomes necessary to run a ship towards shallow waters and finally to ground.(the keel of ship touches seabed) it is called as beaching a ship
2. All those vessels which are no longer in position to sail are called as Demolition vessels and hence taken to ship breaking yard for recycling.

Procedure
The ship is taken to ship demolition beach and the ship is made to run on full ahead engine and finally grounded to assigned point ,where full structure of ship is cut for futher recycling
The word Beaching is used as grounding of the ship is done only in those areas where the ground is of soft mud or sand (as in a Beach)
main reason to use beach for grounding is that the hull, propeller, rudder etc. do not get damage

Why Beaching is done?

The three main reasons
• To prevent loss due to flooding to the ship any damage below the water line of the ship
• When required repair has been done and water tight integrity is restored
• When the ship is finally handed over to the scrap yard

Procedure to Perform Beaching of Ship

Prior beaching the ship, below is the checklist which must be checked for safe and accurate beaching

What is Demolation voyage?

Demolation voyage is last voyage of the ship ,wherein she is going to beaching and later gets cut into parts for recycling

Major Beaching ports in the world

Gadani ship breaking yard in Pakistan

Alang ship breaking yard in India

Chittagong ship breaking yard in Bangladesh

China has also come up with ship braking yard now but most of the ships are still going for scrape in India Bangladesh and Pakistan

Ship Breaking

Ships purchased on the basis of their light displacement tonnage (ltd) are demolished in ship breaking yards and sent re-rolling mills for reuse as raw material for production of steel .currently the international ship demolition market is centered around the Indian subcontinent.

while a large number of tankers find their way to scrap yards in Pakistan and Bangladesh ,Indian ship breaking yards attract mostly dry and general cargo vessels.

Ship breaking industry in india is mostly concentrated at Alang in Gujrat ,which is the world’s largest ship breaking yard catering to nearly 90 percent of India’s ship breaking activity .However sporadic activity also takes place in other locations like Sachana ,Gujrat ,Mumbai and Calcutta .

The ship breaking activity at Alang includes a total of 170 yards of which 50-70 is operational and around 50,000 people are involved directly or indirectly in the business of scrapping .

The total tonnage of ship broken in india has varied from a low of 0.65 million ldt in 1991-92 t a high of 2.79 million ldt in 1997-98 .Financing is an important aspect of the industry as scrapping normally involves an intermediary ‘cash buyer’.

Earlier state bank of saurashtra and sena bank took active role in the ship breaking industry however of late most banks have become reluctant to finance ship scrapping projects

Ship scrapping industry in India suffers from government apathy. In spite of the fact that re-rolling accounts for about 60 percent of the national production of bars ,rods and structural and ship scrapping supplies nearly 200,000 tonnes of scrap every year to the re-rolling mills the sector remains largely disorganized as well as unrecognized.

In the recent past ,the ship scrapping industry attracted considerable attention on the issues relating to environmental pollution ,health problems of labor and violence of human rights.

Environmentalists across the world particularly Green peace and Basel action network have drawn international attention to the poor working environment prevailing at the Indian ship scrapping yards particularly at Alang and opened up fronts everywhere by calling for legal action against scrappers, building up public opinion against scrapping and physically blocking the ships meant for scrapping .

The environment issue could become the single largest factor that could determine the structure of the ship breaking industry in future

Looking at the prospects of the ship breaking industry in India it has been observed that competition from neighboring countries is expected to become tough in the near future.

China has also come back to the scrapping industry in recent years with a bang by capturing a significant volume of tonnage sent for scrapping .Pakistan and Bangladesh are likely to pose serious threats to Indian ship scrapping yards.

Considering all the hurdles faced by the Indian ship scrapping industry, ample scope for improvement has remained and Indian ship scrapping industry is expected to take all possible actions to keep the industry vibrant.

There is a bright future in ship breaking industry in India. There are many technical as well as non-technical jobs in India market.

Related Read: What are Bulk Carrier Ship

Describe the maneuvers and precautions to take before and after a vessel is beached

Actions Prior to Beaching

The vessel should take on full ballast.

Both anchors should be cleared away and made ready to let go.

Anchors and cables must be clear.

Stern anchor, if installed, must be kept standby for emergency use