News

Viking Jupiter, the 47,800gt cruise ship built at Fincantieri’s shipyard in Ancona, Italy for Viking Cruises, has been delivered with a Thordon Bearings’ seawater-lubricated propeller shaft system. It is the sixth Viking cruise ship to be fitted out with the COMPAC bearing arrangement.

Thordon Bearings’ Global Service & Support division completed the bearing conversion of the 10MW Francis turbine in June 2018 together with Andritz Hydro, after the existing white metal bearing was damaged due to water ingress from a faulty shaft seal. Through its regional distributor in India, Soneji Engineering, Thordon supplied a complete guide bearing package for the turbine’s 355mm (14in) diameter shaft. The scope of supply included an SXL guide bearing with tapered key set in a split stainless-steel housing, a SXL segmented radial shaft seal with split housing, a Thordon Water Quality Package (WQP) to deliver clean lubricating water to the bearing, and a comprehensive instrumentation package for monitoring bearing condition.

Fortum’s 10MW hydropower plant at Vassinkoski, Sweden, is now successfully operating with Thordon Bearings’ polymer SXL turbine guide bearing following the completion of the plant’s extensive renovation and recommissioning work.

Thordon Bearings has completed a range of water-lubricated and grease-free bearing installations to a third salt lugger in the Salinor/Navenor fleet, following the successful retrofitting of bearings to problematic newbuilds. The salt carrier Nossa Sra. das Das Vitorias was retrofitted with Thordon’s SXL propeller shaft bearings after just three weeks of operation, while sistership Dona Zita was retrofitted with RiverTough shaft bearings and hardened steel liners in 2016.

Thordon Bearings has advised its customers with newbuilds under construction to ensure they have the necessary documentation in place permitting operations in US waters prior to 18th December 2018. This advice follows the October 10th announcement by the US Environmental Protection Agency that the 2013 Vessel General Permit, due to expire in December 2018, will now be administratively continued till at least March 2019, when an updated version, VGP 3.0, will be introduced.

Thordon Bearings has signed sales and distribution agreements with St. Petersburg-based Industrial & Marine Projects (IMPRO) and Tallinn’s Marine Ecology Equipment (MEE), in a development that anticipates the introduction of more stringent pollution rules for European waterways.