News

Bedford Pumps Ltd, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-capacity flood defence pumps, has selected Thordon Bearings water lubricated SXL bearings for a new pump design developed for the Islington Pumping Station, in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, England. This important project will see four fish-friendly land drainage and flood control pumps installed at the new 16,000 l/s (253,605 US gal./min.) capacity pumping station which, when commissioned, will protect a 6000ha (23 square miles) area of low-lying fenland.

One of the world’s oldest tugboats, the 117-year-old, steam-driven Daniel Adamson, is set to return to service offering short cruises along the River Weaver, a tributary of the fabled Mersey River in England, after the completion of a project to install new propeller shaft bearings. The 1903-built steamship, rescued from scrap merchants 15 years ago, was fully restored in 2016 at Birkenhead’s Cammell Laird yard, the original builder of the vessel. Thordon Bearings’ SXL water lubricated propeller shaft bearings were installed last year after competitor bearings failed.

Thordon Bearings has added to the growing concern over proposed changes to Vessel Incidental Discharge National Standards of Performance (VIDA) requirements, citing far reaching environmental consequences if clauses in the existing document are removed. In a statement submitted to the United States Environmental Protection Agency on November 20th 2020, the Canada-based bearings and seals pioneer “strongly questions the removal of some text” in the proposed amendments, stating that such omissions will mean existing zero pollution solutions will be overlooked.

A recent inspection of the twenty-year-old water-lubricated propeller shaft bearings installed on a twin-screw cruise ship were found to be within classification society parameters and suitable for continued use for a further ten years of operation. At the shipowner’s request, Thordon Bearings – the market leader in water lubricated bearing technologies – attended the docking in Brest, France, to assess the propeller shaft liners and outboard bearings of a 2500 passenger-capacity cruise ship. The award-winning COMPAC bearings were installed in 1999.

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has replaced the rubber cutterhead bearings on the 102m (335ft) dredger Mahmoud Younis with a water-lubricated Composite bearing from Thordon Bearings. The retrofit, which took place at the Port Said Shipyard’s floating drydock, follows the success of a similar installation aboard CSD Mashhour, the largest dredger in the SCA fleet. Its rubber cutterhead bearings were replaced last year, providing the first Thordon installation with the Authority.

Thordon Bearings is to retrofit its grease-free ThorPlas-Blue bearings to ForSea Ferries’ Tycho Brahe, one of the world’s most environmentally friendly ships, at its next scheduled drydocking. The decision follows the success of the bearing installation to the bow doors of Aurora, the first of two high-intensity battery-operated ferries converted by Sweden’s Oresund Drydocks and delivered in 2016. It was the first ever installation of a Thordon self-lubricating bearing to the bow doors of a ro-ro ferry.