Thordon Indicators Multi-Vessel Provide Cope with Maritime Companions

Thordon Bearings has signed a multi-vessel provide settlement for a spread of water-lubricated and grease-free bearings for set up to a number of fleet boats below development on the FMT Shipyard & Restore facility in Louisiana, U.S.A. for workboat proprietor Maritime Companions.

Twelve twin-screw push boats are scheduled to be delivered from the Louisiana-based yard with tools that features RiverTough tailshaft bearings, ThorPlas-Blue rudder bearings with Pucker Seals, ThorPlas-Blue steering linkage bushings, SXL thrust washers, and TG100 tailshaft seals.

Based in 2015, Maritime Companions owns a fleet of 1,600 inland river vessels operated below bareboat constitution. The brand new vessels, nonetheless, would be the firm’s first newbuilds to function an entire portfolio of Thordon expertise following the success of particular person installations aboard present tonnage.

Maritime Companions’ co-founder and President, Austin Sperry, a direct descendent of gyrocompass inventor Elmer Sperry, stated: “As a number one supplier of maritime belongings and a founding member of the BlueSky Maritime Coalition, we now have a dedication to and a duty for environmentally-sustainable maritime operations. The applying of technical options that ship completely zero environmental threat is a no brainer for us.”

David DiSalvo, the proprietor of DiSalvo Marine, the impartial contractor for Thordon Bearings that secured the deal, stated: “We went by way of the specification and Austin stated he needed the whole lot Thordon had. He wrote “Thordon” alongside the rudder bearings, the shaft bearings, the steering bushings, and the seals. Each time we acquired to a element that Thordon produced, he scratched out what was already within the spec and wrote Thordon.”

With the US Environmental Safety Company (EPA) seeking to part out older fuel-guzzling emitters, many workboat homeowners are renewing their fleets.

Maritime Companions is assumed to function one of the fashionable, youngest, and most environmentally environment friendly fleets throughout the US inland river community.

DiSalvo stated: “Maritime Companions has optimized its boat constitution enterprise by choosing two totally different engine packages on these new fleet boats. Each engine choices meet the most recent US EPA necessities. Consequently, the brand new Entech-designed boats make the most of the utmost horsepower score with out having to make use of Tier IV engines with exhaust after-treatment techniques, which advantages charterers because it reduces working prices.

“Now with the addition of the Thordon merchandise, the corporate has upped their recreation with environmentally pleasant vessels that may provide longevity and low upkeep that its prospects can even worth for a few years.”

Whereas environmental concerns and the lowered OPEX related to Thordon tools had been apparent deal makers, the figuring out issue got here when Austin Sperry met Thordon Bearings’ Founder and Innovator and found he was a recipient of the award given within the title of his nice, nice grandfather.

In 2019, George (Sandy) Thomson was introduced with the Elmer. A. Sperry Award for Advancing the Artwork of Transportation, one of many highest accolades given for a person’s contribution to transportation engineering.

Thordon Bearings’ Territory Gross sales Supervisor, Jim Vibrant, stated: “It’s implausible to see this actual, bodily connection between the maritime trade, Elmer Sperry and the spirit of the award. When Austin met Sandy, it was a gathering of minds. They share the identical environmental imaginative and prescient. They each acknowledge the position maritime industries should play find tangible, significant options to the local weather change downside.”