News

Ecuador’s foremost tuna fishing operator NIRSA has completed a project to convert the tailshaft seals and bearings aboard the 1973-built tuna vessel BP EL Marquez to a seawater-lubricated package from Thordon Bearings. In total, four Thordon SXL propeller shaft bearings and a pair of TG100 mechanical shaft seals, each of which features Thordon’s emergency-safe-return-to-port (SRTP) capability, replaced a competitor’s seawater-lubricated bearings and stuffing box after the shaft had suffered early wear due to gland packing. Bronze shaft liners were also included in the Thordon scope of supply in what marked a significant retrofit project that required the renewal of shafts, sterntubes, seals and bearings.

SIGMA Group, one of Europe’s leading industrial pump manufacturers, has specified Thordon Bearings’ grease-free bearings for installation to the specialized pumping sets destined for flood defence and irrigation projects across Egypt. In total, Thordon is supplying 64 of their water-lubricated Composite bearings for use in 49 SIGMA BQBV vertical diagonal pumps specified for projects along the Nile River and the Sinai Peninsula.

Canadian-based ice resurfacing specialist Resurfice Corp has returned to Thordon Bearings with a repeat order for its grease-free SXL and ThorPlas-Blue polymer bearings for Resurfice’s Olympia range of ice arena resurfacing machines.

In what marks a relatively new application for Thordon Bearings’ pioneering polymer material, Wilson Ship Management AS (“Wilson”), a Norway-based ship manager, has replaced the greased bronze bearings on the hatch cover wheels of some of its dry cargo vessels with self-lubricating ThorPlas-Blue bearings.

Thordon Bearings has indicated a polymer propeller shaft bearing lubricated by seawater could generate significantly less underwater radiated noise (URN) than metal bearings lubricated by oil. The Canadian polymer bearings specialist says the low URN of a ship operating with seawater-lubricated propeller shaft bearings is one of the reasons why the arrangement is favoured by the naval, cruise and fisheries sectors.

Thordon Bearings is supplying its grease-free, self-lubricating ThorPlas-Blue bearing material to a novel containerized wind propulsion system designed to reduce fuel consumption and fossil fuel emissions across all commercial ship types.