Paid PractitionerCertificate

Biofouling Management

Fouling as a discipline, not a diver call-out: the biology and the fuel bill, the IMO 2023 guidelines, coatings and niche areas, inspection regimes, in-water cleaning with capture, and the road from voluntary guidance to a mandatory regime.

Lessons
7
Quiz questions
56
Exercises
2 (10 min)
Calculators
2
Time
About 65 min
Price
€169+ VAT
Certificate
Graded final exam, then a PDF certificate with a number anyone can verify
Who it's for
Technical superintendents, HSQE and vetting teams, performance analysts: anyone who owns a Biofouling Management Plan or pays for what happens when there isn't one.
Assumed knowledge
None strictly. The fouling-economics lesson of Vessel Performance in Practice is a natural companion; this course goes deep on the management side.
Taught by

Christos Papandreou

CEO & Founder, Blue Autonomy

  • Naval architect and marine engineer, National Technical University of Athens
  • 15 years of experience in fleet performance and operational data
  • Chief Scientific Officer, NEMO, previously DeepSea Technologies, StormGeo, Athenian Sea Carriers, PwC

Part of the Vessel Performance Analyst II: The Hull in Service specialisation.

What you will be able to do

By the end of the course. Each outcome names the lessons that deliver it, and the final exam samples every one of them.

  1. Describe fouling as biological succession from biofilm to hard growth, and quantify both its fuel-and-emissions penalty and the biosecurity concern that is driving regulation. Lesson 1
  2. Describe the architecture of the IMO 2023 Biofouling Guidelines (MEPC.378(80)): plan, record book, inspection cadence, cleaning principles, and the announced path toward a legally binding framework. Lesson 2
  3. Select an anti-fouling system by the ship's actual operating profile, distinguishing the main system families and the chemical boundary the AFS Convention draws. Lesson 3
  4. Explain why niche areas foul first and matter disproportionately for biosecurity, and describe how a Biofouling Management Plan names, owns and verifies each. Lesson 4
  5. Design an inspection-and-monitoring regime (cadence, triggers, methods, and a rating discipline that produces evidence rather than adjectives), with performance monitoring as the always-on early-warning layer. Lesson 5
  6. Distinguish proactive grooming from reactive cleaning with capture, navigate port permissions and provider approval schemes, and assemble plan, records, monitoring, cleaning and contracts into a management loop that satisfies the regional regimes that already bite. Lessons 6, 7

Every hull is a habitat trying to happen. Left alone, it succeeds, and the consequences arrive on two invoices at once: a fuel penalty that can reach double digits from a coating of slime, and a biosecurity exposure that ports from Auckland to California refuse to tolerate.

This course treats biofouling as the management discipline it has become. It walks the biology and the numbers first, then the regulatory architecture: the IMO's 2023 guidelines, the Biofouling Management Plan and Record Book, and the announced path toward a mandatory framework. From there it gets practical: choosing anti-fouling systems for the ship's actual operating profile; the niche areas where much of the risk hides; inspection regimes and the performance-monitoring triggers that catch fouling early; and in-water cleaning: proactive and reactive, with capture, approvals and coating compatibility. It closes with the regional regimes that already bite and the working system that ties plan, records, monitoring and contracts together.

The opening lesson is free to read as a sample. By the end, your BFMP should read like an operating manual you actually run the ship by, not a binder the auditor once admired.

What the course covers

  1. Two Problems in One: The Fuel Bill and the Stowaways 8 min
  2. The IMO Framework: The 2023 Guidelines and the Road to Mandatory 8 min
  3. Anti-Fouling Systems: Matching the Coating to the Ship's Real Life 13 min + exercise
  4. Niche Areas: Where the Risk Actually Hides 7 min
  5. Inspection and Monitoring: Knowing Before It Costs 8 min
  6. In-Water Cleaning: Doing It Without Making It Worse 13 min + exercise
  7. Regional Regimes, and Making the System Run Itself 8 min

€169 + VAT

€209.56 including 24% VAT, which is what an individual in the EU pays. Outside the EU no VAT is added. A company in another EU country pays the net price once its VAT number is confirmed in VIES, the EU's register; a company in Greece pays the 24%. Checkout shows the total before you pay.

Paid once, for one person, for as long as the Academy runs: every lesson, the 2 Excel workbooks, the final examination and the certificate. Part of the Vessel Performance Analyst II: The Hull in Service specialisation, which costs less than its courses bought one at a time.

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All prices · Refunds: 7 days, unless you have started

Common questions

What exactly is included?

7 lessons (about 65 minutes in total), 56 quiz questions with explained answers, and 2 working Excel calculators: Coating business case, Hull-cleaning trigger calculator.

How much does it cost?

€169 plus VAT, paid once: €209.56 with 24% VAT, which is what an individual in the EU pays; outside the EU no VAT is added, and a company in another EU country with a VAT number valid in VIES pays the net price. That buys every lesson, the 2 Excel workbooks, the final examination and the certificate, for one person, for as long as the Academy runs. The course is also part of the Vessel Performance Analyst II: The Hull in Service specialisation, which costs less than its courses bought one at a time. Everything else is on the pricing page.

Is there work to do, or is it only reading?

2 lessons carry a required exercise, about 10 minutes of hands-on work in total. You download that lesson's Excel workbook, follow the numbered steps against the numbers the lesson states, then change one input and watch the answer move. The exercises are where the method stops being something you have read and becomes something you can run; the stated course time includes them.

Do I get a certificate?

Yes. The course ends with a graded final exam, marked on our server rather than in your browser: you see your score and which questions you got wrong, but not the answers, because the questions are drawn from a pool. Pass it and you get a PDF certificate in your name, with a certificate number on it.

That number is the point. Anyone you show the certificate to can check it themselves at academy.blueautonomy.gr/verify, with no account and no email to us: the page states the name, the course and the date we issued it. A certificate nobody can verify is a decorated PDF, and we would rather issue one that stands up.

Can I preview the course?

Yes: the first lesson, Two Problems in One: The Fuel Bill and the Stowaways, is free to read in full. It is a real lesson, not a trailer: same depth, same quiz.

Do I need prior knowledge?

None strictly. The fouling-economics lesson of Vessel Performance in Practice is a natural companion; this course goes deep on the management side.