Danish company CleanQuote, part of the GateHouse Group, has created a digital platform for the booking of underwater hull cleaning (UWC) from connected service providers in more than 400 ports. The new service has been added to the company’s existing digital platform, providing access to cleaning services for ships’ cargo holds.

“With rising fuel prices and stricter climate requirements, UWC becomes more important to the shipping companies, and this creates a new business opportunity for us,” explains Lasse Ekdahl, CPO of CleanQuote.

“Just as we have had great success in digitalizing the business processes for cleaning ships’ cargo holds, we are now making it just as easy to order efficient and reasonably priced UWC,” he added.

He continued, “Our solution also makes it much easier to maintain an overview of the rules for UWC in different ports as they can vary a lot. One of our customers had previously ordered UWC in a specific port and then discovered that the hull had been cleaned down only to eight meters below the waterline, because that was the port’s maximum-allowed depth. So, the ship had to sail on with a ‘half’ cleaning – which was a waste of money. We can ensure that such misunderstandings do not happen again.”

CleanQuote says it has already established agreements with service providers for the cleaning of cargo holds in over 1,000 ports and aims to include UWC ordering in 800 of those ports by the end of 2023.