Impressed current cathodic protection is a method for ships hull protection.

But, before discussing the Impressed current cathodic protection, its important to know
the theory and history of cathodic protection.
Cathodic Protection method is a method of controlling corrosion and is based on
electrochemical process. In this method, the corrosion of the cathode is achieved by
concentrating the oxidation reaction in a galvanic cell at the anode. This method of
Cathodic protection was first developed and used on a small scale in 1824 by Sir
Humphrey Davy for protecting the British naval ships from corrosion.
During corrosion process, the direction of corrosion current within the electrolyte is
from local cell anode to the local cell cathode. The current flowing through the short
circuited corrosion cell, flows across a resistance R a offered at a local anode surface.
Now, if an opposing current is applied to the corroding metal, through another anode
the corroding metal would receive more and more amount of electrons. The local
cathodic reaction rate reduces and the corrosion current, gets suppressed, thereby
suppressing corrosion. The externally applied current, thus, makes the entire metal as
cathode. This technique of corrosion protection is known as Cathodic Protection.
The current i1 flowing through the short circuited corrosion cell, flows across a
resistance Ra offered at a local anode surface. Cathodic protection is achieved by
applying external current i2 through external anode to the corroding surface. It is
observed that the cathodic area offers resistance R c to the total current i1 + i2.
Therefore, using Kirchoffs laws we obtain a simple relation connecting the applied
external potential and the resistances offered in terms of the current flowing in the
circuit
Thus,

Therefore we see that In order to prevent corrosion, i 1 (corrosion current), should be

zero. This is possible, if Ea = Ec + i2 Rc. The above equation states that the potential of
the local cell cathodic site should be suppressed to the potential of local cell anodic site
on the corroding metal by applying an external current through external anode to
achieve cathodic protection. The cathodic protection on bare metal requires a large
amount of current to be impressed externally. It can also be seen that this current
demand can be appreciably reduced, if surface resistance (R a + Rc) is increased. The
only way to increase this resistance is by application of paint film on steel surface.