News

Bronze bearings in the stern roller of the Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) Vessel ES Kestrel have been replaced with grease-free SXL bearings from Thordon Bearings while the vessel remained afloat and operational. The replacement was undertaken in May 2024 by Thordon’s Dubai-based distributor Ocean Power International (OPI) for the AHTS owner Echo Cargo & Shipping of U.A.E.

Representing a breakthrough in the evolution of a ship’s propeller shaft line, Thordon Bearings has unveiled the Thordon-Blue Ocean Stern Space (T-BOSS), a new solution designed to meet the propeller shaft requirements of the sterntubeless ship design proposed by the Blue Ocean Alliance. Introduced to the global maritime industry today at the SMM trade fair in Hamburg, Germany, the new T-BOSS propeller shaft arrangement includes Thordon’s award-winning COMPAC polymer bearing with tapered key set, Thordon Bearing Condition Monitoring system, a Wärtsilä Enviroguard shaft seal, and Thordon’s Water Quality Package.

Thordon Bearings is supplying multiple sets of grease-free bearings to completely replace old technology at the Otto Holden Generating Station on the Ottawa River in Ontario, Canada. Andritz Hydro was contracted to undertake the mid-life refurbishment of the station’s turbines on behalf of Ontario Power Generation (OPG). Two of the 243MW station’s eight units have now been fitted with Thordon’s ThorPlas-Blue and Thorseal products, via its local distributors RMH Industries in Quebec and Millstream Engineering in Ontario.

Thordon Bearings’ brake cups are being supplied to Hydro-Québec, the largest hydro power company in Canada, as part of a decade-long turbine brake system overhaul program. The Burlington-based bearing and seal specialist is providing the brake cups to its Canadian distributor RMH Industries, an integrated company specializing in mechanical and hydraulic repair and machining of oversized parts. RMH Industries has been manufacturing and repairing brake blocks for Hydro-Québec since 2020.

VARD has named Thordon Bearings Inc. (Thordon) as a preferred supplier to Team Vigilance. The Burlington, Ontario-based innovator secured its first naval contract in the early 1990s, supplying first-generation COMPAC bearing systems for installation to the RCN’s Halifax-class frigates and Oberon-class submarines. Since then, the company has supplied its bearings and seals to more than 50 Navies and Coast Guards around the world.

Future newbuild ships of all types should be built without a sterntube and with a seawater-lubricated propeller shaft bearing arrangement, according to Blue Ocean Alliance’s Chris Leontopoulos. Speaking at a recent maritime industry forum in Hamburg, Mr. Leontopoulos said the sterntubeless ship design – jointly developed by Blue Ocean Alliance members ABS, Thordon Bearings, Shanghai Merchant Ship Design and Research Institute (SDARI), Wärtsilä, and the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) – is so commercially, operationally and environmentally attractive that “I personally hope that in the future all ships are built like this”.