C-DRONE GUIDE · 4 AUGUST 2026
Ship hull inspection by drone: dry dock, holds and tanks, surveys — method and price
A day of dry dock downtime costs a merchant ship tens of thousands of euros; erecting staging in a cargo hold or sending rope access teams up a superstructure or hull side adds delay and risk. Classification societies now accept remote inspection techniques — drones included — for part of the close-up visual examinations. For a shipowner, a shipyard, a marine surveyor or a port, the drone has become a triage tool: scan fast, commit heavy means only where justified. Here is how these inspections run in practice in French ports, and what they cost.
Published on 4 August 2026, reviewed on 29 August 2026 — regulations in force as of August 2026.
What a drone sees on a ship
In dry dock, the drone tracks the hull at constant stand-off and delivers full photographic coverage within hours: coating condition (blistering, flaking), corrosion areas, sacrificial anodes, sea chests, visible propeller and rudder clearances. Georeferenced along the hull, the set serves as a baseline before paint work and for comparison at the next docking. Alongside, the topsides, superstructure, masts and antennas, derricks and gear are documented without a cherry picker.
In enclosed spaces — cargo holds, ballast tanks, cargo tanks — ducted drones built for indoor flight replace staging for the visual examination of high structures (beams, stringers, bulkheads). Research here has been active for fifteen years: Francisco Bonnin-Pascual and Alberto Ortiz (University of the Balearic Islands) published a reference survey in Ocean Engineering in 2019 on robots and vision technologies for vessel inspection, born of the European MINOAS and INCASS projects (see the study on Google Scholar). Steel thickness measurements, however, remain the preserve of certified operators working at the surface: the drone prepares them by pinpointing suspect areas.
Class, survey, charter: who orders what
Three types of client share the demand:
- Shipowners and technical managers: preparing class surveys — classification societies accept remote inspection techniques for certain examinations, under conditions (assessed supplier, surveyor following the flight live); drones also serve between dockings to watch a doubtful area.
- Marine surveyors and insurers: damage statements (berth contact, light grounding, crane damage), on/off-hire condition surveys, without waiting for a docking slot.
- Shipyards and ports: pre-work measurement, blasting and painting progress, end-of-yard documentation — and, on the infrastructure side, inspecting port structures and lighthouses and maritime signals mobilises the same teams.
Flying in a port takes preparation: the estate is often in restricted airspace, and harbour master and terminal operator clearance comes on top of the usual aviation steps. In a hold or tank, the job follows the ship's confined space procedures (gas freeing, permits) — see our guide to confined space inspection.
Deliverables: from photos to a comparable report
The useful deliverable is not a heap of photos but a report structured by ship zones (port/starboard shell, bottom, underwater hull by strake, superstructure, numbered holds), each finding located on a plan or profile of the ship, graded and dated. Successive inspections reuse the same breakdown: that is what lets a corrosion area be tracked from one docking to the next, and paint work be priced accurately (real surface areas by coating condition).
For smaller units — passenger launches, fishing vessels, large yachts — the same method applies at reduced scale; sailing yachts call for the specific approach described in our guide to mast, rigging and hull inspection.
2026 prices
Orders of magnitude observed in France in 2026 (excl. VAT):
- Hull coverage in dry dock (merchant ship, zoned report): €1,200 to €3,000 depending on size and reporting depth.
- Enclosed space inspection (ducted drone, per hold or tank): €800 to €2,000, excluding the ship's access preparation.
- Damage statement or alongside condition survey: €500 to €1,200 per half-day.
Mobilisation time often matters more than price — a ship does not wait: state the port, the call or docking window and the scope to cover in your quote request.