Vessel Core OÜ, an independent technical supply desk for ship engine-room spare parts, has opened a free library of marking readers and calculators on its website. The tools help engineers and purchasers work out what a part is before they ask for a quote: an electric motor nameplate, a bearing designation, a thread or flange, an O-ring size, a valve marking and many other codes found on board.

The company’s RFQ form works the same way. A buyer who has no part number can upload a photo of the nameplate instead; the form reads the plate and fills in the maker and model. Two fields are enough to start a request, and RFQs are accepted in English, Russian and Estonian.

“Most of the delay in buying spares happens before anyone quotes a price,” said Anton Ostroglazov, CEO of Vessel Core. “A requisition says ‘seal kit, pump No. 2’, and the real question is which pump. We kept asking engineers the same questions, so we built tools that let them answer those questions on board, in a few minutes, and send a request we can work on without another round of emails.”

Vessel Core covers 103 makers in 17 equipment families, from main and auxiliary engines and turbochargers to separators, pumps, compressors and boilers. Every line of its quotes states the route before the price: the maker’s original, an OEM part or a verified alternative. The company was registered in Tallinn in July 2024 and works with ship managers, technical superintendents and purchasing teams in Europe.