A vessel’s hull plays an important role in its fuel consumption and environmental performance. Keeping that hull smoother and cleaner reduces resistance through the water, helping owners and managers improve efficiency throughout the operating cycle.
Realising that potential involves decisions that extend from coating selection and application to onboard maintenance and performance monitoring. Connecting these stages gives maritime teams a stronger basis for understanding how their investment performs and where further improvements can be made.
As a member of RightShip’s Zero Harm Innovation Partners Program, PPG Protective and Marine Coatings is bringing these elements together. Its approach combines hull coating technology, application methods and digital insights to support more efficient vessel operations and contribute to the industry’s wider sustainability ambitions.
PPG joined the Zero Harm Innovation Partners Program in 2024 with PPG SIGMAGLIDE® 2390, its biocide-free, silicone-based fouling release coating. Since then, its participation has expanded to include PPG NEXEON™ 810, a copper-free, ultra-low-friction antifouling coating.
These technologies help maintain hull performance by reducing the resistance associated with fouling and surface friction. For owners and managers, this connects coating selection with the energy required to operate a vessel and the associated fuel costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
Supporting this work is a dedicated team of experienced professionals, including naval architects, who collaborate with third-party institutes and customers on vessel efficiency and environmental performance. This combination of technology and technical expertise helps customers assess how coating choices fit their operational needs.
PPG’s premium hull coatings are used on thousands of vessels worldwide, across a range of vessel types and operating profiles. That reach provides opportunities to work with owners and managers facing different performance requirements and maintenance priorities.
Customers retrofitting vessels from conventional antifouling systems to SIGMAGLIDE or NEXEON have reported improvements in power performance from the outset. PPG links these gains with reductions in fuel consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions, illustrating how hull coatings can contribute to operational and environmental objectives together.
The significance extends beyond the coating’s protective function. For owners and managers assessing a vessel’s operating costs, hull efficiency is part of a broader investment decision: how to maintain performance, manage fuel expenditure and support environmental goals over time.
Making that value visible is an important part of PPG’s work with customers. Performance evidence helps connect the technical characteristics of a coating with the practical outcomes that matter in service.
One of the main challenges PPG faces is accelerating adoption by helping customers evaluate upfront expenditure against longer-term benefits.
Premium coatings involve an additional cost compared with conventional systems. Assessing that investment requires a view of the vessel’s operating cycle and the potential contribution of improved hull performance to fuel consumption, emissions and maintenance.
PPG has responded by placing greater emphasis on business cases and performance evidence that help customers quantify the value of their coating choices. Its continued investment in research and development supports this work, alongside closer attention to how coatings are applied, maintained and monitored.
This reflects a practical need. Owners and managers want enough evidence to assess the expected value of an intervention and understand how that value can be demonstrated once a vessel returns to service.
The application process is another part of PPG’s approach to vessel efficiency.
Electrostatic spray application, known as ESTA, can improve coating transfer efficiency, helping shipyards reduce overspray and material waste. By addressing how coatings are applied, PPG extends its focus to the resources used during the application process as well as performance in the water.
Once vessels enter service, maintenance introduces a different set of demands. Crews need to maintain vessel assets while managing the practical complexity of onboard coating work. PPG One Range™ helps simplify that work by reducing coating complexity and supporting more efficient maintenance.
These capabilities connect shipyard application with the ongoing care of vessel assets. They recognise that supporting efficiency throughout a vessel’s life requires attention to the people and processes responsible for putting the technology into practice.
Digital tools provide a further connection between coating technology and vessel operations.
PPG HullNav™ uses vessel-specific data and advanced analytics to monitor hull performance, including fouling intensity, speed loss and power consumption. This gives owners and managers greater visibility of coating performance and supports more informed maintenance and docking decisions.
The practical value comes from understanding how the hull is performing in service. Bringing these indicators into the decision-making process helps maritime teams assess when maintenance may be needed and plan interventions with clearer operational context.
PPG InsightsNav™ extends the use of data to seastock management. By analysing historical spending, it provides insights to support purchasing and maintenance decisions, complementing the focus on physical vessel performance.
Together, these tools support PPG’s wider ambition to connect coatings, application and maintenance through information that customers can use throughout the operating cycle.
PPG describes this connected model as its “360-degree approach to vessel efficiency”. Looking ahead, the company sees opportunities to bring its technologies together more closely and support a more predictive approach to vessel management.
That direction places ongoing performance evaluation alongside the initial coating decision. Owners and managers can use what they learn in service to inform maintenance, prepare for docking and assess future investment.
Through RightShip’s Zero Harm Innovation Partners Program, PPG contributes expertise in hull coatings and vessel efficiency to a shared ambition for more sustainable maritime operations. Its focus on reducing resistance, improving application efficiency and strengthening performance insight provides practical ways to support that ambition.
As these capabilities become more closely connected, the opportunity is to give maritime teams a clearer understanding of how their vessels perform—and a stronger basis for deciding what to improve next.
If your innovation has the potential to redefine the maritime industry, we invite you to submit your application and become part of a global movement towards a safer, greener future.