Athens, 5-8 May ROTIS: REMOTELY OPERATED TANKER INSPECTION SYSTEM Fivos ANDRITSOS 1 and Danilo MADDALENA 2 1 Joint Research Centre, European Commission, fivos.andritsos@jrc.it 2 TECNOMARE SpA, Italy, maddalena.d@tecnomare.it ΑΒSTRACT IMO Regulations require tankers to be subjected to an enhanced survey programme of inspections through annual, intermediate and special surveys to evaluate and certify their structural integrity for continuous service. Maritime vessel inspection is based on (1) close-up visual inspection (2) steel plate thickness measurements. Prior to inspection the ship is made fully available at the harbour area. IACS requires that means of access be provided to enable the Surveyor to perform the inspections in a safe and practical way. This implies a considerable ship idle time and, consequently, cost of the inspection campaign. The possibility of performing tele-operated inspections, i.e. avoiding the direct intervention of human beings, is particularly appealing for the reliability, safety and, mainly, economic reasons. In the double hull vessels, the ballast spaces between the hulls can provide access to virtually all the structural components. The Remotely Operated Tanker Inspection System (ROTIS) is based on a compact, free-floating ROV with a self-deployable tether, able to navigate inside the flooded ballast tanks and carry out close-up visual inspection and wall thickness measurements. ROTIS is fitted with specific features permitting navigation inside the ballast tanks, passing through vertical and horizontal manholes, taking pictures and gauging plate thickness while being remotely controlled by a safely placed operator (i.e. at the ship bridge). Specific safety constraints during its deployment and operation are accounted for. This project has been partially funded by EC, in the BRITE- EURAM framework. 1. INTRODUCTION The disasters of ERIKA on December 1999 and PRESTIGE last November have put once more in evidence the importance of periodic ship inspection and quality of such assessment. Pollution prevention measures fall under the MARPOL Convention, in particular the rules of MARPOL 73/78. As a consequence of the Exxon Valdez accident, the oil tankers operating in the USA must comply with the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) '90. Following the tendency for stricter rules, IMO anticipated the phase-out of single hulls to the latest at 2015, in accordance with OPA. Lately, as a response to the PRESTIGE accident, EC banned single hull tankers from EU waters. The introduction of double hull vessels is widely seen as the most appropriate response to the need of preventing maritime catastrophes such as that of the PRESTIGE. However, introduction of double hull vessels without additional measures to efficiently monitor / inspect the condition of the hull will only postpone the issue for some years; it may even create an even greater problem. The current IMO Regulation 13G requires tankers to be subjected to an enhanced survey programme of inspections through annual, intermediate and special surveys to evaluate and certify their structural integrity for continuous service. The scope and details of the enhanced survey have been developed by IACS and implemented by each Classification Society.