How Clean Is Your Hull? The Data Behind Better Vessel Cleaning

A vessel can be halfway to its next port before anyone starts thinking about the next cargo. Then the questions start. 

Are the holds going to be ready? What condition are they in? What cleaning do they need? Is the right equipment available in the next port? Which supplier can do the job? Has someone raised the request? And, perhaps most importantly, has anyone actually confirmed it will happen?

These questions rarely arrive one at a time. They land in an operator’s inbox alongside port updates, cargo instructions, bunker arrangements, weather, agents, charterers, and everything else competing for attention during a voyage.

Small pieces of information can become surprisingly important. A hold that is not ready on time can affect the next cargo. A cleaning job that is missed can mean more coordination, more cost, and another problem to solve further down the line. As with most shipping workflows, there is no shortage of information. The challenge is getting that to the right person, at the right moment, while there is still time to act.

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The Information is There. The challenge is Finding it

For vessel operators, a question might arrive as a simple email: “Are the holds ready for the next cargo?” Answering that question can be anything but simple. The vessel operation might need:

• The latest hold photos
• The current cleaning inventory
• The vessel’s cleaning history 
• The latest hull inspection
• Any active cleaning requests 
• To have a conversation with the master
• To contact a supplier

The information often lives in different places: email threads, spreadsheets, supplier platforms, saved photos. The work gets done, but people have to spend valuable time piecing together the context they need before they can act.

For an operator, that friction is easy to recognise:

• Where is the information?
• Is it current?
• Has someone already dealt with this?
• What needs to happen next?

These are very common operational questions that get asked on a daily basis.

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Making Vessel Cleaning Easier to Manage: CleanQuote

CleanQuote was built around a very specific part of maritime operational reality: vessel cleaning. For operators, cleaning is not just a job to arrange. Vessel cleaning is another moving part of the voyage, tied to cargo requirements, port calls, vessel condition, timing, and what needs to happen next. CleanQuote brings that work into one place, connecting dry bulk operators with vetted suppliers for hold and tank cleaning supplies, shore cleaning gangs, and underwater services across more than 1,000 ports worldwide.

Just as importantly, CleanQuote gives operators a clearer picture of what is happening across their vessels. Cleaning inventory, ROB, cleaning history, vessel condition, and other operational information can be brought together. Teams get the context that they need so that they can plan the next job rather than starting from scratch every time.

Benefits include less time spent searching for suppliers, chasing information, and piecing together what happened last time, as well as more visibility into what each vessel needs next.

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Cleaning Decisions Starting in the Inbox

What happens when a cleaning decision starts with an email? That's where the Sedna and CleanQuote integration comes in.

CleanQuote is available directly inside Sedna Email, bringing vessel cleaning information into the operational conversation. Operators can access current hold photos, inventory status, hull condition, inspection history, and active cleaning requests from the Sedna Email side panel. And when something needs to happen, they can initiate a cleaning request through CleanQuote without leaving the workflow.

Here's how CleanQuote describes the experience:

No separate login. No switching tabs. The data is collected regularly from masters, so what you see is current. From the same panel, you can initiate a cleaning request directly through CleanQuote. (https://cleanquote.com/sedna-app-launch/) 

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From “Where is it?” to “What do we do?”

Operators frequently receive emails about a vessel's next cargo. With the Sedna and CleanQuote integration, instead of leaving the email conversation to go searching for the latest hold photos, they can see them alongside the email message. Instead of wondering whether the vessel has enough cleaning supplies, they can check the latest inventory. Instead of searching for a previous cleaning request, they can see whether one is already active. And if cleaning is required, they can start the request from the same place.

The information doesn't just become easier to find. It becomes actionable. That is an important distinction.

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Letting Shipping Do Shipping 

An operating system shouldn't ask people to constantly leave the place where they're working to find the information they need. It should bring that context to them.

That's the thinking behind Sedna's Intelligent Operating System for Shipping. Email communication is where much of the work starts:

• A voyage instruction arrives
• A charterer asks a question
• A master sends an update
• A supplier responds
• A change needs to be understood.

Communication is not the end of the workflow. It should lead to action. This is why connecting specialist applications to operational flows matters.

CleanQuote remains the hub for vessel cleaning workflows and supplier coordination. Sedna Email remains the place where teams manage the communication and context around their work. Together, they connect the two. The operator doesn't need to think about where one system ends and another begins. They can just get the job done.

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Fewer Screens for Maritime Teams

Shipping teams don't need another dashboard every time another piece of information becomes available. They need:

• Fewer places to look for the information
• Fewer things to remember
• Fewer times to copy information from one system into another
• Fewer moments where an important decision is delayed because someone is still trying to find the latest update.

Technology needs to fit around how people actually work. For an operator, that might mean seeing the latest hold photos while reading a voyage instruction. For a chartering team, it might mean understanding whether a vessel is ready for the next cargo before committing to it. For a fleet team, it might mean having a clearer view of vessel condition without waiting for another update.

The technology should adapt to the work. Not the other way around.

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Not Just for Ops, for Chartering Too

Mads Porsborg, Managing Director at CleanQuote, recently described this shift in a LinkedIn post:

Ops teams were saving loads of time and making better decisions, but they still had to be the middle man sharing all this info to chartering when they needed it for fixing decisions.  That’s until we launched our Sedna app. Suddenly, chartering teams could self-serve information directly in Sedna. We saw this happening organically with our launch customers. Users who had never interacted with CleanQuote suddenly became some of the most active users. When we spoke to both chartering and ops teams, we knew we had hit something that worked. So now we specifically build features to improve the life of chartering teams. Photos, cleaning reports, certificates - all in one place in Sedna any time. One click to attach any of them to an email. And it’s a snowball effect: the more we build for chartering, the more feedback we get, and the better we become. It’s an exciting time. (https://lnkd.in/p/dKiqVm8h) 

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We’re excited to see where this goes next, especially as Ops and Chartering get closer to the same connected information and start working from the same picture. There’s something powerful about making the right information available to more people, at the moment they need it, and seeing what that unlocks across the voyage.

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Small Moments, Better Decisions

Vessel cleaning is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the future of shipping technology. That’s exactly why it matters.

The future of maritime tech isn't just about transforming the biggest processes. It's also about removing friction from the hundreds of smaller decisions that make up a voyage. Because those decisions add up:

• A missing piece of information
• A delayed response
• Another follow-up email.
• Another spreadsheet.
• Another login.
• Another five minutes spent looking for something that should have been right there.

If we multiply that across a fleet, across a year, and across thousands of operational decisions, then the cost of disconnected work becomes much bigger.

Connecting CleanQuote with Sedna is one example of a different approach: don't add another system to the workflow. Make the workflow itself work better, so small decisions take less effort and people can keep the voyage moving.

Put the context where the work happens. Connect information to action. Give people more time to do the work that actually needs their expertise.

That's the promise of an Intelligent Operating System for Shipping. Not another place to work, but a better way to work.

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More Info 

• Take a closer look at the Sedna and CleanQuote Integration HERE
• Explore Sedna’s certified app integrations HERE
• Learn more about why we call Sedna the Intelligent Operating System for Shipping HERE
• Follow Sedna on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Mads Porsborg on LinkedIn HERE

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