The drydock quote you sign is rarely the invoice you pay. Drydocking is the largest planned maintenance event in a vessel's cycle, and overruns of 20 to 40 % are common enough that many owners simply budget for them in advance. Yet what separates the operators who hold their budget from those who watch it slip is almost never negotiating skill: it is the quality of the specification handed to the yard. And that quality is not produced in the three weeks before the vessel goes on the blocks — it is built all year round, in drydock planning software, which in practice means your maritime CMMS.
Every technical manager knows the scene. A few weeks before the docking, the chief engineer is called in, the file from the previous docking is dusted off, and the team starts mining memories: "I think one of the starboard sea valves was stiff", "the stern seal was already weeping last summer". The specification that comes out of that exercise is incomplete and hard to price, and every omission will resurface in the dock as a change order — invoiced without competition, at the rates of the yard that currently holds your ship out of the water.
We have already covered the method and the budget of a docking in our article on the drydock plan. This one is about the tool: what software must do to turn your maintenance history into a specification, keep change orders under control during the yard period, and capture every job for the next cycle.
What is drydock planning software?
It is not an extra tool sitting next to the CMMS: it is the CMMS itself, applied across the whole docking cycle. Drydock planning software does three things: it accumulates dry-only work throughout the season (deferred work orders, tagged and photographed), turns them into a structured specification at tender time, and then tracks change orders, owner-supplied items and actual costs during the yard period. A spreadsheet can list jobs; it cannot link each line to an asset and its history, trigger the purchasing that goes with it, or preserve the photographic evidence that will settle the end-of-dock negotiation.
Vendors call it a maritime CMMS, a planned maintenance system (PMS) or ship maintenance software. The label matters little. What matters is that the tool covers the full cycle described below — and that it works on board, offline, where the observations are actually made.
The specification writes itself all year — not in the last three weeks
Every observation made in service belongs on the next-docking list the moment it is made. A seized sea valve that cannot be changed afloat, a weeping shaft seal, coating breaking down at the waterline, an anode 80 % wasted: without a tool, these findings end up in a personal notebook — and sign off with their author at the end of the tour.
The habit that changes everything: defer the work order
In a CMMS the workflow takes three gestures. The officer records the finding, raises a work order from a phone, attaches two photos and the exact location. He qualifies it: "dry dock only". He defers it under a dedicated tag — "drydock" — and moves on. The finding is dated, illustrated, and linked to the asset and its history. Thirty seconds on board, hours saved ashore.
What feeds the list through the season
- Underwater hull and appendages: coating condition, impact damage, corrosion or blistering, hull fouling.
- Sea valves and hull penetrations: stiff operation, wasted skin fittings, sea chests due for inspection.
- Shaft line and propulsion: clearances, seal weeping, propeller condition, stern tube wear-down readings to be taken.
- Cathodic protection: anode wastage recorded at every in-water survey.
- Anchoring and deck gear: chain calibration, link condition, mooring arrangements.
- Hull sensors and transducers: log, echo sounder, ICCP references — to be pulled or checked while dry.
- Statutory and class survey items: whatever your classification society or flag administration will require to be presented in dry condition.
By tender time the specification no longer has to be written: it has to be edited. Filter the work orders tagged "drydock", rank them (mandatory, desirable, opportunity), add the standard scope on top — our annual haul-out checklist gives the frame — and you hold a document in which every line carries an asset, a photograph, a history and a priority.
Fixing the date: survey windows and yard availability
A docking date is constrained twice over. First by the regulatory calendar: dry inspections of the hull sit inside your classification society's or flag administration's survey cycle — typically two dockings in each five-year period with a maximum interval between them, and, for some vessels and subject to your society's rules, an in-water survey accepted in lieu of one of them. Miss a window and you are negotiating an extension, sailing under a condition of class, or immobilising the vessel at the worst possible moment. Second by the market: yards are booked months ahead, and booking late means taking whatever slot remains, at whatever price remains, sometimes hundreds of miles from your operating area.
This is where software does what no spreadsheet can: a consolidated, fleet-wide view of every survey and certificate due date two years ahead. The certificate and classification survey calendar raises alerts ahead of each window, and the fleet view lets you stagger the dockings: two vessels in dock the same month means two relief crews, two owner's site teams and a cash-flow squeeze.
| Date constraint | Source | Preparation horizon |
|---|---|---|
| Dry survey window | Classification society or flag administration | Known years in advance — tracked in the CMMS |
| Certificate anniversaries | The vessel's statutory certificates | 12 to 24 months |
| Yard slot | Market — dock and lift capacity in the region | Booked 6 to 12 months ahead, depending on the area |
| Operating seasonality | Fishing season, tourist season, charter commitments | Owner's call — the docking goes in the low season |
| Long-lead purchases | Items on lead time: shaft, propeller, special valves, coatings | Ordered 3 to 9 months before docking |
From CMMS history to the yard tender
A specification drawn from the CMMS changes the nature of the tender itself. Yard quotes are only comparable if every bidder is pricing exactly the same scope, described at the same level of detail. When the specification is vague, each yard interprets it, underprices to win the job, and recovers the margin on change orders. When it is precise — asset identified, photograph attached, quantities measured — the cheapest quote stands a chance of actually being the cheapest.
| Specification from memory | Specification from CMMS history | |
|---|---|---|
| Completeness | Depends on who is in the room and what they remember | Every finding of the season, dated and photographed |
| Yard pricing | Broad provisions, uncertainty priced in | Precise line items, known quantities, tight quotes |
| Comparability of bids | Poor — each yard understands something different | Strong — identical scope for every bidder |
| Change orders during the docking | Numerous: the omissions surface once the ship is dry | Limited to genuine discoveries (gaugings, open-up findings) |
| Acceptance disputes | Word against word | History and before/after photographs on the record |
The structure of the document itself stays classic: the yard's standard tariff items (docking and undocking, blocks and shores, staging, shore connections, watchmen), the work drawn from the history, the survey-driven work, and an explicit provision for contingencies. Each item is priced against the actual costs recorded at previous dockings — which is also what lets you defend the budget in front of management with something better than estimates.
During the yard period: change orders, owner supply and daily progress
Once the contract is signed, everything depends on how the yard period is run. Three disciplines — all three supported by the software — keep the invoice close to the quote.
Log every change order before the work starts
Growth work commonly adds 10 to 30 % to the contract value: thickness gaugings that reveal a plate for renewal, a valve body eaten by corrosion, a surprise under the coating. The problem is not that it exists — it always will — but whether it is traceable. The rule: no change order without a work order raised, priced and approved before execution. In the CMMS, every yard request becomes a work order linked to the asset, with the quotation attached, a photograph of the finding and a formal approval by the fleet manager — including remotely, from the office. At the end of the docking, the negotiation is no longer about a list reconstructed from memory but about a time-stamped record nobody disputes.
Deliver owner-supplied items on time
A yard waiting for an owner-supplied part bills the waiting — or slips the undocking date. Anodes, valves, shaft seals, specific coatings: every owner-supplied item should be ordered through the purchasing module, with a delivery date matched to the docking plan and a status visible from the vessel and the office alike. Check existing stock before ordering: proper spare parts inventory management stops you buying what is already sleeping in a fleet store.
Record progress daily, with photographs
A daily record — jobs done, photographs, blocking points — is the evidence base for acceptance, punch lists, warranty claims and the end-of-dock negotiation. With a mobile app that works offline, the owner's site representative records findings at the foot of the hull, even in a graving dock with no network coverage; synchronisation happens later. Before/after photographs of every treated area, attached to their work orders, are worth more than any registered letter.
Capitalising: the docking that just ended prepares the next one
The docking you are closing is the database for the next one — provided you close it properly: every work order completed with its actual cost (yard labour, materials, subcontractors), counters reset on renewed or overhauled equipment, gauging reports and survey records archived as attachments, coating condition documented area by area.
What that capitalisation pays back in the next cycle:
- Credible pricing: real cost per item becomes the benchmark for the next tender — no more finger-in-the-wind provisions.
- An objective yard record: schedule performance, change-order rate, rework quality — the facts you need when deciding whether to return.
- Technical trends: anode consumption per period, coating degradation rate, shaft wear-down from one docking to the next — the raw material of investment decisions.
- A defensible file: at a class survey, during a Port State Control inspection or in a warranty dispute, a complete, dated history changes the conversation.
- A specification already 80 % written: the day the next cycle opens, the deferred-work list starts filling itself again.
That loop — observe, defer, specify, track, capitalise — is exactly the planned maintenance logic set out in our complete maritime CMMS guide, applied to the most expensive event in the vessel's life cycle.
The features to demand from drydock planning software
When you evaluate tools, judge them on the full cycle, not on a cosmetic "drydock" feature. Here is the minimum scorecard.
| Feature | Why it is essential | Question for the vendor |
|---|---|---|
| Deferred, tagged work orders | This is the mechanism that builds the specification all year | Can a work order be deferred as "dry dock only" and retrieved by filter in one click? |
| Offline mobile app | Findings are made in the bilges and in the dock, not at a desk | What happens with no network for eight days? Is the sync queue reliable? |
| Survey and certificate calendar | The docking date depends on class windows | Are all the fleet's due dates visible on one screen, with alerts? |
| Photos and attachments on work orders | Before/after evidence settles the end-of-dock negotiation | How many photos per work order, and do they stay linked to the asset's history? |
| Integrated purchasing | Late owner-supplied items cost dock days | Can a purchase request start from a work order and be tracked to delivery at the yard? |
| Actual costs per work order | Without closed costs there is no pricing for the next cycle | Can labour, parts and subcontracting be broken down per work order and per docking? |
| Multi-vessel fleet view | Staggering dockings is a fleet-level decision | Does the office see yard progress in real time, vessel by vessel? |
| Specification export | The document goes out to three competing yards | Can the filtered list be exported with photos and priorities in a usable format? |
This scorecard slots into a wider evaluation: our 32-criteria scorecard for choosing a maritime CMMS covers the rest — hosting, support, data migration, compliance.
Key takeaways
Drydock planning software is not an exotic add-on: it is your maritime CMMS applied with discipline across the whole docking cycle. The specification builds itself all year through deferred, photographed work orders; the date is set against a fleet-wide survey calendar kept up to date; the yard period is held together by traceable change orders, owner-supplied items delivered on schedule and a daily progress record; and closing every job with its actual cost turns the docking that just ended into the database for the next one.
The gain is anything but theoretical: an exhaustive specification tightens the quotes and makes them comparable, change orders approved before execution eliminate the end-of-dock surprises, and a complete history transforms both the final negotiation and the statutory surveys. It is the difference between enduring your docking and running it.
Smart Sailors covers this cycle end to end: deferred work orders with photographs, a certificate and survey calendar, purchasing tied to the docking plan, an offline mobile app and a consolidated fleet view to run several dockings in parallel. Designed in Marseille by seafarers, deployed on more than 700 vessels. Talk to us about your next docking before you write the specification, or take a look at our plans — free 30-day trial.
.png){kind=small}
