Facing confined workspace in Cuihuashan floating dock, CHI(Guangdong) optimized crew deployment and dynamically adjusted workflows to safely strip 9,070m² of old coatings from the flat-bottom hull and 2,200m² from port/starboard freeboard areas.
The team then applied five-coat painting to the entire hull and seven-coat painting around the scrubber overboard discharge outlet.
To minimize dock time, the shipyard implemented a "pre-dock preparation" strategy:
Pre-docking robotics: Used smart painting robots to pre-strip 1,600m² of hull coatings above waterline during berthing
Early access operations: Deployed aerial platforms for ultra-high-pressure water blasting on starboard freeboard
This enabled immediate full-scale operations upon docking. The project set new efficiency benchmarks:
Completed 11,300m² hull stripping (including pre-dock work), dual high-pressure washing, and first-coat application within 51 hours of docking. Achieved full painting sequence in just 99 total hours – slashing the dock time by 40% compared to conventional methods.
China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited, press release
