Thordon Bearings has praised the government’s Innovative Solutions Canada initiative for encouraging more of the country’s entrepreneurs, innovators, and manufacturers to design solutions in support of Transport Canada’s Ocean Protection Plan. The $1.5 billion plan, about which the fourth annual report was published in June, is the largest investment ever made to protect Canada’s coasts […]

Navies, shipowners, shipyards, and organizations have offered the best of birthday wishes to Canada’s Thomson-Gordon Group, the parent company of water-lubricated polymer bearing pioneer Thordon Bearings, as it celebrates its 110th anniversary this fall. Among several well-wishers, Claude Tremblay, Directorate General Maritime Equipment Program Management National Defence, Royal Canadian Navy, wrote: “Congratulations to Thomson-Gordon Group […]

Thordon Bearings’ COMPAC open seawater lubricated propeller shaft bearing system is being offered to ship owners with a 5% rebate as part of the international Green Award Foundation’s Incentive Provider program. The rebate applies to those Green Award certified shipping companies and their certified seagoing or inland navigating vessels. This partnership will not only benefit […]

Thordon Bearings has praised the Canadian government’s Innovative Solutions Canada initiative for encouraging more of the country’s entrepreneurs, innovators, and manufacturers to design solutions in support of Transport Canada’s Ocean Protection Plan. The $1.5 billion plan, about which the fourth annual report was published in June, is the largest investment ever made to protect Canada’s […]

Thordon Bearings has registered an upswing in the number of historic passenger vessels operating on European waterways with water lubricated propeller shaft bearings as a way of further protecting those waterways from oil and grease pollution. According to Andreas Gitterle, Managing Director of Neotecha GmbH, a member of Thordon’s distributor network, there has been a […]

Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) is a step closer to replacing its industrial pump bearings with grease-free Thordon water-lubricated bearing solutions, following the installation of the Canadian company’s pioneering technology to desalination plants across the United Arab Emirates. In the first six months of this year, Ocean Power International (OPI), Thordon Bearings’ Dubai-based distributor, […]

Thordon’s heavy-duty elastomeric bearing materials have been keeping the Comeau Marine Railway operational under locally concentrated loads and in some of the harshest, abrasive waterways for more than forty years. Comeau Marine’s 600t-capacity railway, one of Nova Scotia’s oldest patent slips, operates year-round to maintain and service much of the inshore fishing fleet as well […]

The largest cruise ship to be built in Italy has been delivered with a COMPAC seawater lubricated propeller shaft system from Canada’s Thordon Bearings. The 170,400gt MSC Seashore, delivered from Fincantieri’s Monfalcone shipyard late last month, joins the smaller 154,000gt Seaside-class vessels MSC Seaside and MSC Seaview, both of which were delivered with a COMPAC […]

China’s Fujian Southeast Shipyard has delivered four in a series of five new product tankers ordered by Malaysia’s Orkim Sdn Bhd. The 9000dwt Orkim Sapphire and Orkim Pearl, and 14,500dwt Orkim Diamond and Orkim Emerald represent the first vessels in the ship operator’s fleet to be fitted with a COMPAC seawater lubricated shafting system from […]

When a well-known industrial pump manufacturer needed four fully finished vertical pump bearings within three days to meet an urgent delivery deadline, Thordon Bearings’ Customer Service team orchestrated a solution to deliver the 6in (152.3mm) diameter water-lubricated SXL bearings on time. The Texas-headquartered company, a major customer for the Canadian non-metallic bearing specialist, had a […]

Captain Henry Jackman, the 34,864dwt dry bulk cargo carrier China’s Jiangsu Yangzi-Mitsui shipyard delivered to Algoma Central Corporation in April, will begin trading on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway in June with a water-lubricated shaft arrangement from Thordon Bearings. The state-of-the-art vessel, Algoma’s fifth Equinox Class of gearless bulkers and tenth Equinox design to enter […]

Grupo Servicios Maritimos, an Argentinian company offering a variety of services related to the maritime, inland waterways, and port activity, operates a fleet of ten tugs, two container feeders, and six pilot/service launches, as well as a number of barges. A frequent headache for the Buenos Aires-based operator, however, was the excessive tailshaft bearing wear […]

Mexico-based TZ Industrias has replaced the deck machinery bushing aboard the Caroil Transport Marine oil tanker Petion with ThorPlas-Blue, marking Thordon Bearings’ first large commercial vessel project in the country. Thordon’s grease-free material replaced a competitor’s spherical split bearing on the 72,714dwt vessels’ deck crane during a recent drydocking at the TNG Veracruz Shipyard, Mexico’s […]

One of the world’s oldest tugboats, the 117-year-old, steam-driven Daniel Adamson, is set to return to service offering short cruises along the River Weaver, a tributary of the fabled Mersey River in England, after the completion of a project to install new propeller shaft bearings. The 1903-built steamship, rescued from scrap merchants 15 years ago, […]

Thordon Bearings has announced the appointment of Millstream Engineering as an authorized distributor for the Southern Ontario and Western Canada regions. With a presence in Orillia and Burlington, both in Ontario, the company will provide distribution and engineering support to Thordon’s complete portfolio of hydropower, vertical pump, and industrial bearings and seals. Co-founded by Greg […]

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has replaced the rubber cutterhead bearings on the 102m (335ft) dredger Mahmoud Younis with a water-lubricated Composite bearing from Thordon Bearings. The retrofit, which took place at the Port Said Shipyard’s floating drydock, follows the success of a similar installation aboard CSD Mashhour, the largest dredger in the SCA fleet. […]

A series of well-attended webinar conferences broadcast during the first Covid lockdown has resulted in Thordon Bearings securing a contract from a Mexican fishing vessel operator. Thordon’s SXL rudder bearings were installed on the 1174gt Grupomar-operated fishing vessel María Luisa at the Mexican Navy Dry Dock in Manzanillo, Mexico, marking the Canadian bearing manufacturer’s entry […]

Venables Machine Works Ltd., a large manufacturing and machining firm based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, has been appointed as an authorized distributor and service provider for Thordon Bearings’ industrial bearings portfolio. The formal agreement follows a ten-year collaboration in which Venables provided sales and engineering support to Thordon’s customers across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Scott […]

Canada’s Irving Shipbuilding has cited Thordon Bearings as one of a number of partners playing a pivotal role in ensuring the Royal Canadian Navy’s (RCN) new Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) are capable of environmentally sustainable operations. The first two in a series of six twin-screw vessels entrusted to Irving Shipbuilding, have been put […]

The final vessel in a series of five ship-assist tugs has been successfully converted to Thordon’s RiverTough tailshaft bearings and TG100 shaft seals and has returned to work on the Mississippi River. These five tugs are considered to be the first ship-assist tugs operating in the lower Mississippi fitted with both RiverTough bearings and TG100 […]

Harken Towing, a western Canada-based workboat company with operations along the Fraser River, is converting its vessels’ tail shaft bearings to RiverTough following the success of the Thordon bearing system aboard the 14.54m (47.7ft) twin-screw tug Granny Hutch. Since the first installation in 2015, Harken Towing, which operates a fleet of ten shift tugs, five […]

Canyon Marine Solutions has been approved as an authorized distributor for Thordon Bearings, manufacturer of the award-winning water-lubricated COMPAC propeller shaft bearing system. The Virginia-based engineering firm will provide sales and engineering support to Thordon’s complete portfolio of marine bearing and seal products in the states of Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and the District […]

The safe-return-to-port function of Thordon Bearings’ TG100 emergency shaft seal has prevented a vessel from sinking following a catastrophic shaft failure. The crew of the MM Transportation-operated Jennifer S, a 56-ft long workboat operating on the Ohio River, near Rockport, Indiana, activated Thordon’s secondary inflatable emergency seal when the tail shaft was pulled out of […]

Capital expenditure is always a key consideration during the system procurement process but when low cost components result in an increase in unbudgeted operational costs, then any savings quickly diminish. That was the experience of Saudi Arabia-based ship operator Hadi Hamad Al-Hammam when the original shaft seals fitted to Hadi 37, a 2013-built twin-screw offshore […]

Thordon Bearings is alerting its customers to the recent publication of a DNV GL study that concludes the recent surge in propeller shaft bearing failures is indeed related to the use of certain environmentally acceptable lubricants (EALs). In conclusion to the first phase of an ongoing investigation, DNV GL reported that “there are transient conditions […]