Hullbot robot with brushes and lights on, swimming through green water
Resources

Insights, answers and news

Expert insights on proactive grooming, answers to the questions fleet operators ask most, and the latest milestones from Hullbot.

Insights

Articles & Whitepapers

Learn and discover more about proactive grooming, biofouling prevention and hull efficiency. Explore expert insights, industry research and technical whitepapers to understand how proactive hull grooming is one of the biggest levers to improve fleet performance and support maritime decarbonisation.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

  • Do you damage my coating?

    Hullbot uses custom, gentle grooming arrays specifically calibrated to protect delicate hull coatings. By adjusting brush selection, contact pressure and speed to match each vessel’s specific coating profile, Hullbot removes early biofouling before aggressive reactive scrubbing is required.

    Hullbot is also a free-swimming robot, so it never leaves the track marks, mechanical stress and surface abrasion caused by magnetic tracks or cavitation water jet cleaning.

    In an independent test, a simulated 5-year regime of weekly grooming resulted in zero significant coating wear. Furthermore, real-world data across 2,500+ completed deployments confirms zero coating damage across all major commercial coating types, including soft foul-release coatings.

  • Where do you deploy your service?

    Hullbot delivers autonomous hull grooming for vessels operating across Australia and New Zealand, Asia Pacific, the United States and Canada, and Europe, including the Baltic and the Mediterranean. Our robots are compact and transportable, and they need no support vessels or shore infrastructure, so our service isn’t tied to a fixed network of cleaning ports. Hullbot coordinates the local port authority and biosecurity approvals needed at each port on your behalf. We can operate wherever your vessels call.

  • How long does it take to clean my ship?

    A Hullbot grooming session is scheduled to fit within your vessel’s existing idle time, so grooming never adds time to your port call. We deploy at berth or at anchor during routine port stays, day and night. For tighter windows, we deploy multiple robots at once to cover the hull faster. Each session is also shorter than a typical reactive clean: frequent grooming means the robots only remove early-stage slime, never heavy growth.

  • How much is your service?

    Hullbot is priced as a subscription tailored to each vessel. The price reflects hull size, operational pattern and cleaning frequency. Our service is designed to be offset by fuel savings. To get a firm price for your fleet, request a Fleet Assessment and our team will deliver a tailored commercial proposal.

  • Can I buy or lease your robots?

    No. Hullbot doesn’t sell or lease its robots. We deliver autonomous hull cleaning as a fully managed subscription service. Hullbot owns, operates and maintains its robots, so there’s no capital expenditure and no crew time required on your side. You pay for a consistently clean hull and the inspection data that comes with every clean, not for hardware you have to manage.