Providing a quality shipment is what revolves around the shipping industry today. As the entire world screams for quality in products and services, the shipping industry is asked to reduce its damage rate to as near as zero. Because there are more incidents of damaging goods during the transportation, hatch cover maintenance and watertight integrity testing is being pressed upon. While this is not the complete solution to get free from leaks in the hatch covers and the other parts of the ship’s body, it is the first step towards treatment and betterment. Without it we cannot be sure to have a ship which is completely leak free.

Due to the leaking hatch covers not only goods have been affected but there have been a lot of reports about damage to the ship itself. Many times water has entered in sensitive areas of the ship such as the wire and cables. In one incident the leaking ship had to suffer a loss of power and it was left stranded in the middle of the ocean for days until another ship spotted it. The water had caused a short circuit in the electricity board and the ship became powerless due to which its engines ceased to work. It is important to keep the electric cables safe from any kind of water to enter its ducts. Although the wires already are insulated, but who knows where a joint was created and it is now exposed and vulnerable. This increases the need to check cable transit areas watertight testing every now and then.

Another freaky thing about the transport ship is the water which enters inside from the compartment doors. These doors are made water proof by a thick layer of rubber which acts as insulator. At times the rubber length which is stretched across the door’s edges may appear to be in good shape, but there is some spot which has lost its integrity and can be a good point for the water to ingress. This can be a serious issue especially when the ship is caught in a thunderstorm or when the tide is high. The water can force its way inside the compartments and wet everything inside.

If the water manages to enter compartments and even though it does not cause considerable harm, the ship would become heavy because of the added load. This extra load can easily become the reason of the ship to capsize. Hence this clearly raises the need for watertight compartment doors testing because the transport ship is already carrying more weight than mentioned by the manufacturer which is a common practice noticed among transport ship owners. They add the extra weight to carry a maximum number of goods in a single go.