{"id":5504,"date":"2026-07-16T08:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T08:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.floating-fender.com\/?p=5504"},"modified":"2026-07-16T08:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T08:51:15","slug":"marine-floating-hose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.floating-fender.com\/de\/marine-floating-hose\/","title":{"rendered":"Was ist ein schwimmender Marineschlauch? Aufbau, Typen, Normen und Auswahl"},"content":{"rendered":"

A marine floating hose is a buoyant, flexible hose that carries liquids or slurry across a water surface. It is used where fixed piping cannot follow the movement of a vessel \u2014 most often crude oil transfer<\/a> at offshore moorings and slurry discharge in dredging. Whether a given hose suits a project depends on the fluid, the mooring or discharge configuration, and the reserve buoyancy required at that position in the string. Buoyancy comes either from closed-cell foam built into the hose wall or from external floats clamped onto a standard hose. The right specification is driven less by the hose itself than by where it sits in the transfer string and what it has to survive there.<\/p>\n

Floating Hose Definition and Main Applications<\/h2>\n

A marine floating hose is an elastomer-reinforced hose engineered to stay on the water surface while conveying fluid. What sets it apart from other marine hoses is its buoyancy media, not its bore or pressure class. What varies between designs is how flotation is achieved and how the hose is contained. Those two choices govern visibility, propeller-strike avoidance, and how the line behaves under wave load.<\/p>\n

Two applications dominate the search for this term, and they pull the specification in different directions. In offshore oil and gas, floating hoses transfer crude and refined products between tankers, buoys, and FPSO units at mooring systems<\/a> such as SPM, CALM, and CBM. In dredging, they carry a slurry of sand, silt, and gravel from the dredger to a discharge point. The oil duty is governed by hydrocarbon-hose standards and leak containment; the dredging duty is driven by abrasion resistance and slurry velocity. Which duty applies matters, because a hose built for one is not automatically fit for the other.<\/p>\n

Floating hoses stay visible on the surface, which helps vessel operators steer clear of the line and avoid propeller contact. That visibility is a working safety function, not a cosmetic one. It does not make the hose immune to a strike, though \u2014 propeller cuts remain one of the documented ways a surface hose is damaged. That is exactly why the line is floated, colored, and kept clear of the vessel rather than left loose in the water.<\/p>\n

Three Separate Ways to Classify a Floating Hose<\/h2>\n

Floating hoses are classified along three independent axes: buoyancy method, containment construction, and position in the string. Treating these as one combined category is the most common specification error. Buoyancy method and carcass construction are separate decisions. One governs how the hose floats, the other governs how a leak is contained, and neither determines the other.<\/p>\n

Buoyancy method<\/strong> is the first axis. A floating hose may use closed-cell buoyancy material built integrally around the hose body, or, in some applications, discrete external floats fastened onto a standard hose. Integral foam is bonded to the hose body and cover. Clamp-on floats can be added or removed as a project changes. The two also fail differently, so they are inspected differently. Clamp-on floats add mechanical fixing points that can loosen, chafe, or shift along the hose. An integral-foam wall has no such fixings, but once its outer cover is breached it can take on local water ingress that is hard to reverse on site. Because the buoyancy is either bolted on or built in, there is no universal “better” choice. It depends on who inspects the line and how often.<\/p>\n

\"Cutaway<\/p>\n

Containment construction<\/strong> is the second axis, and it is separate from buoyancy. A single-carcass hose has one containment layer. A double-carcass hose adds a second carcass with a monitored volume between the two. The double-carcass design exists for leak containment, not flotation. If the primary carcass develops a slow leak or a sudden burst, the secondary carcass holds the escaping fluid, and a leak-detection or failure-alert device signals the operator. A double-carcass hose can get its buoyancy from integral foam or from floats, so the containment choice does not dictate the buoyancy choice.<\/p>\n

Position in the string<\/strong> is the third axis. It sets the hose’s shape and duty rather than its material. Mainline, tail, tanker rail, and first-off-buoy sections are all floating hoses. But each carries a different reinforcement and buoyancy specification, because each sits in a different part of the transfer path. The next section covers those positions.<\/p>\n

How a Floating Hose String Is Arranged<\/h2>\n

A floating hose rarely works alone. It functions as one link in a hose string, and each section has a distinct shape and duty. So a purchase order for “a floating hose” is usually really an order for several different hoses in sequence. Getting the section wrong for a position is a specification error even when every individual hose is sound.<\/p>\n

\"Diagram<\/p>\n

A complete offshore string generally runs from the tanker outward through sections whose names recur across the industry:<\/p>\n