The biggest concern on board a ship is the safety of the people onboard and the goods that are traveling along. The historic sinking of the Titanic showed the entire world about the intensity of the damage that could occur when a ship gets a hole in it. Although the hole in the ship occurred due to a massive blow from an iceberg and today the ships modern navigation system allows it to detect such bergs before time. But this does not mean that the modern ship never develops a hole in it. Holes occur all around the year and they are constantly detected and then refilled. It is an ongoing process but the damages that happen due to these holes are too great and that is why the need to find the hole before it starts inflicting damage has become necessary.

The biggest damage occurring on a transport ship is when the hatch covers leak. As the hatch covers are huge and are possibly the largest lids on the planet, if they start leaking the damage is huge and a great amount of water can easily get inside the cargo holds destroying all the goods inside. Hence the Hatch cover maintenance and watertight integrity testing needs to be done properly to ensure that there are no leaks or holes present. Some ships have sunk to the deepest pits of the ocean when they came in contact with a violent raging storm. The leaking hatch covers gave access to a lot of water and the ship which is already carrying weight to its limit became heavy and started sinking. Soon the water filled entirely in it and the ship was no more to be seen on the surface of the water. Not only did the shipping company had to bear the loss of the ship which sunk, but it also had to repay the customers for all their goods and the human lives that were lost are irreversible.

A ship’s structure is made of different compartments. If taken a look at the anatomy of a ship, we can easily see that the ship is a combination of different parts. This means that a ship has to be taken care of part by part because every compartment has a purpose and they need to be completely sealed. The doors between these compartments are not like the ordinary ones we have in our homes and offices. These doors are special ones which are able to seal a compartment completely when shut but they also can develop leaks. Hence to be extra sure that there is no leakage in the doors, the watertight compartment doors testing is done find any leaks and apply the repairs. This keeps the ship extra safe because if a single compartment gets flooded with water; the watertight doors will not allow the water to gain access to the other compartments. When there is no water in the other compartments, the ship will get a bit heavy but will still be able to manage to get to the shore and then have the water drained out from it.