News

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.

A series of well-attended webinar conferences broadcast during the first Covid lockdown has resulted in Thordon Bearings securing a contract from a Mexican fishing vessel operator. Thordon’s SXL rudder bearings were installed on the 1174gt Grupomar-operated fishing vessel María Luisa at the Mexican Navy Dry Dock in Manzanillo, Mexico, marking the Canadian bearing manufacturer’s entry into Mexico’s expansive tuna fishing fleet.

Umm Al Anber, a 72m (236ft) heavy duty cutter suction dredger operated by Abu Dhabi-based National Marine Dredging Company (NMDC) has completed the refurbishment of its cutterhead shaft bearings as part of an extensive refit at Dubai Maritime City. Thordon Bearings’ Dubai-based distributor for the Middle East, Ocean Power International LLC (OPI), replaced the cutterhead and intermediate line shaft bearings like-for-like with Thordon’s water-lubricated Composite system. The turnkey project included shaft dismantlement, laser alignment, in-situ line boring, calibration, installation and commissioning.

Venables Machine Works Ltd., a large manufacturing and machining firm based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, has been appointed as an authorised distributor and service provider for Thordon Bearings’ industrial bearings portfolio. The formal agreement follows a ten-year collaboration in which Venables provided sales and engineering support to Thordon’s customers across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.