News

When a 9,280hp workboat returned to service following extensive repairs at the James Marine Paducah River Service yard in Kentucky, U.S.A., it marked the first application of Thordon’s new seal-embedded bearing to an articulating rudder. Articulating rudders are unlike conventional rudders and can be more costly to repair when things go wrong. They are more susceptible to wear and tear, due to the higher operating pressures and abrasives, and as a result, require a more robust bearing and seal solution.

Egypt’s SUMED pipeline operator Arab Petroleum Pipeline Company (SUMED) has completed the tailshaft conversion to Thordon’s SXL seawater-lubricated bearing system for seven special purpose single point mooring (SPM) service boats. The final in a series of 17.5m (57.4ft) long, 1976–built service boats had its original oil-lubricated tailshaft bearings replaced with the Thordon system at Nefertiti Marine’s Yard-K, in Rosetta Nile, in December 2022. The first vessel, SUMED 10, was converted in 2019.

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.