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Thordon Bearings will attend next week’s Posidonia to showcase a range of environmentally-safe polymer bearing technologies from its maritime portfolio. With increasing market awareness and demand for its award-winning COMPAC seawater-lubricated propeller shaft bearing, the Canada-based manufacturer will use Posidonia to highlight the environmental and cost-saving advantages of its ThorPlas-Blue range of grease-free polymer bearings in deck machinery.

Thordon Bearings has developed a bespoke modelling tool capable of calculating the amount of operational oil prevented from leaking into the world’s oceans with each installation of a seawater-lubricated propeller shaft bearing. To be launched officially on 22nd April to coincide with Earth Day 2016, the world’s largest environmental movement, now in its 46th year, the Oil Savings Calculator shows that almost 60 million litres of oil pollution has been saved to date.

Thordon Bearing’s evolutionary COMPAC seawater-lubricated propeller shaft bearing system, has been nominated in the Auxiliary Machinery category of the European Marine Engineering Awards, which will take place in Amsterdam next month. Craig Carter, Thordon Bearings’ Head of Marketing and Customer Service, said: “We are absolutely delighted that COMPAC has been nomitated for such a prestigous award. Being nominated for an engineering award is testemant to the advances our engineers and scientists have made in polymer technology.

China’s Qingshan Shipyard has delivered AP Revelin, the second in a series of two environmentally sustainable handy-size bulk carriers, to Croatia-based shipping company Atlantska Plovidba d.d. from Dubrovnik.The 38,700dwt ‘ecoship’ will join first of class AP Dubrava, which was delivered in July 2015. Each 180m (591ft) long tramp trader, built to theGreen Dolphin 38 design unveiled by Shanghai Merchant Ship Design & Research Institute (SDARI) in 2012, features Thordon Bearings’ seawater-lubricated COMPAC propeller shaft bearing system and a Thordon Water Quality Package (WQP). This will provide a clean and consistent supply of seawater to the bearings even when the vessel is docked downstream of the current in shallow waters.

Extensive sea trials aboard Greenland, the world’s first LNG-fuelled short-sea dry bulk vessel, have validated the performance of Thordon Bearings COMPAC propeller shaft solution, indicating that seawater-lubricated bearing systems are applicable to all ship types and are definitely here to stay.

Thordon Bearings has welcomed the introduction of a new classification society notation this week allowing extended inspection periods for propeller shafts using seawater-lubricated bearings. DNV GL’s new voluntary TMON notation for open loop water lubricated propeller shafts follows similar rule revisions by Lloyd’s Register (LR), Bureau Veritas (BV) and the China Classification Society (CCS). Thordon Bearing’s Commercial Director, Andy Edwards, said: “As long as certain condition monitoring criteria are met, DNV GL’s new rules mean that propeller shafts operating water-lubricated bearings no longer need to be withdrawn for inspection every five years. There will be no pre-determined intervals between shaft withdrawal surveys.” “The five-year shaft inspection rules previously stipulated in most shaft condition monitoring notations were a major deterrent to the wider take-up of the water lubricated system, but now the world’s leading classification society has revised its rules we can present a viable and proven alternative to oil-lubricated propeller shafts.”