Leaking hatch covers are the biggest problem for the sea route transport industry. The leaks in the hatch covers are the reason this huge industry which is present all over the globe ends up paying millions or even billions of cash against damage claims. For those who have never seen a transport ship in real can imagine the size of it as bigger than the Eiffel tower. Imagine the huge number of goods that can be stored in a ship of such massive size. Clearly it can carry goods worth billions of dollars in a single shift. Imagine the huge loss which would have to be paid by a single shipping company once the water has seeped inside the cargo holds and damages the goods worth the huge amount.

There is a solution to this problem which is clearly filling the holes, but since a transport ship is a vehicle which is more on the move than it gets to rest every year. The process of filling the holes is easier said than done as we all know lifting the huge weight of these hatch covers is neither easy nor cheap. The process also is done in two phases and the first one is the most important and known as the ultrasonic tightness testing of hatch covers. This process is designed to save time and thousands of dollars which would be termed as flushing down the drain.

Without knowing the exact location and the size of the hole, the attempt to find holes manually after removing the many layers of the ship’s metal body would cost more than the actual worth of the ship. And once the layers have been removed and the hole isn’t found, it would be simply adding insult to injury. In business, it is never a wise move to waste time and money on tests that would yield unexpected results. Also taking fool hardy risks is highly disregarded and it would be simply equal to burn money foolishly. The process to hunt leaks before proceeding to repair them or remove them has been devised a long time ago, but the method of using the ultrasonic device is new.

Checking the tightness of hatch with ultrasound has proved to be worthy and cheap. This is the reason it is urged to the maritime industry to focus more on it rather than fall for the old methods which are time consuming and heavily expensive. Today is the age of high competition and no business can afford to pay more for its operational costs than its competitors. Indulging in such activity would soon make it lose the race and fall way back into the gloom and there would be a time soon when it would get completely out of business.