Asbestos on Ships: Not Just for Insulation.

Asbestos has been used on a variety of components on ships since at least the late 1800s. This blog isn’t about Navy ships as I already blogged on that topic at https://theasbestosblog.com/?p=9987. Rather, this blog is to provide a history primarily concerning civilian sailing vessels such as a cruise ship or an oil tanker and to provide you a checklist of areas worth checking out.

As to when asbestos was first used on ships, I have the following from 1884:

Pretty basic stuff. Lot’s of asbestos by 1884.

Even more by 1891. Several of the below products were designed for maritime application:

I could continue this all day, but you get the idea.

Of course, packing was a critical use. This one is from 1907:

And, although asbestos was eliminated in ship construction in more recent years, you cannot take that to the bank as many countries define “asbestos free” to include small amounts of asbestos; say,1% or so. “Asbestos free” in summary, doesn’t mean asbestos free in many situations; hence, it is worth a check.

The below two page checklist is the most comprehensive that I have seen. If you are concerned about asbestos on a ship, this is a good starting point:

The problem, of course, is that the average person using the above checklist still won’t know if the ship has asbestos containing components. Rather, it really takes a trained professional and some testing.

Turning to the United States government, even the U.S. military knew by 1980 that asbestos was a serious problem on ships. This is from the Maritime Administration:

And, by 2000, the EPA issued guidelines from ship breaking (scrapping) which had about 19 pages on handling asbestos. I can send you the complete publication should you desire.

All I am saying is that resources and information exists to be careful about asbestos on ships. You can be knowledgeable if you do your homework, including retaining experts and undertaking reasonable testing when in doubt for a large transaction. Or, in the right situation, ask the owners.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment or sending me an email at TheAsbestosBlog@gmail.com. Thank you. Marty