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My qualifications as an expert in ship hull fouling
Since 2022, I have been writing reports on the origin of fouling of ship hulls for international clients.
I have been working on global bioinvasions for 9 years.
For 15 years, I have been researching barnacles, the organisms that most commonly attach themselves to ship hulls.
I am one of the few taxonomic experts worldwide on barnacles and am also familiar with other biota that colonize cargo ships.
Given my scientific expertise in barnacles, I have been appointed by P+I Clubs, ship owners and charters to make assessments as to when and where barnacles could have attached to ship hulls — and just as importantly, could not have attached. In doing so, it was possible to identify if this was an Owners' or a Charterers' concern. This depends on how long Charterparties let a vessel stay at port or anchorage.
For my assessments, I can use photographs from underwater hull inspections, or scrape samples obtained during the underwater hull cleaning (see photographs on the left). I can usually determine the species or genus of the barnacles and this will give me an indication as to how fast they grow and where they occur. From there it is possible to back-calculate when and where they first attached.
Please contact me at info@drchristineewers.org for questions and inquiries.
Photograph from underwater hull inspection from which I assess the origin of barnales and other fouling organisms.
Barnacles scraped from the hull of a vessel sent to me for expert assessment.
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