Europe‘s largest family shipping company invests in fleet expansion B.Dettmer Reederei GmbH&Co.KG, Bremen, largest European family owned inland shipping company, transports with most modern ships up to 3.500 t loading capacity as well as tug-barges up to 6.000 t goods of all kinds on the European inland waterway systems. It is a company maxim to invest continuously in the latest state of the art tank ships. On 28. February 2013 the most modern inland tank ship took off at Hitzler Shipyard in Lauenburg, Germany. Management official Julia Dettmer mentioned that owners Dettmer Reederei had invested around €5.8 million in the new Type C tankship, being officially named as DETTMER TANK 140 and going into service in May. She will be the prototype for Dettmer tankers of the future.  DETTMER TANK 140 shortly after its watering “Because of the high technology demands we have created one of the most modern ships on Germany’s waterways”, said Ms Dettmer. The... [More]

GL subsidiary FutureShip has developed a zero-emission propulsion concept for shipping company Scandlines. This trailblazing technology will be implemented on the Baltic ferries within the next five years.In the world of international container shipping, “slow steaming” has long become widespread practice. With the optimization of hulls and innovative designs, FutureShip played an appreciable role in the successful implementation of the concept. Together with shipping company Scandlines, this subsidiary of GL is going one step further: the development of double-ended ferries that are totally emission-free. The FutureShip engineers took a completely new course and approached the matter in a holistic way: from fuel-protection, through energy conversion and storage, and up to optimization of the ship design. For example, the surplus electricity generated by wind turbines in northern Germany and Denmark is to be used to produce hydrogen. This can be transformed back into electr... [More]

The product tanker MV Bit Viking has completed the first ever conversion worldwide, of a vessel from HFO to LNG and is now in service operating along the Norwegian coastline . The very low emissions now attainable will qualify for lower Norwegian NOx emission taxes. The Bit Viking has a very high safety specification, delivered in 2007, the double hulled product tanker of 24,783 dwt has an LOA of 580 ft (177 m) and a beam of 82 ft (26.3 m). The conversion required a major rebuild of the engines from Wärtsilä 6L46B to 6L50DF engines with output of 7,460 hp (5,700 kW). Although having the same stroke as the old engine, required increasing the cylinder bores from 460 mm to 500 mm and replacing most of the engine parts. Safety analysis and approval was undertaken by Germanischer Lloyd (GL) classification society. [More]

Detention following a failed Port State Control must be one of the most undesirable experiences for a ship owner or operator. Holding a ship in port means higher port fees, missed schedules and the unscheduled repair always ends up costing more than the scheduled one. It is certainly something to be avoided and GL’s periodical publication analysing PSC data from around the world is a useful pointer to the items most frequently failing. Within category number two on the list is “Engines, generators and auxiliaries” of which main engines formed 12 per cent of the defects, generators 15 per cent, cleanliness 17 per cent and ‘others’ the balance. [More]

After successful field tests conducted by Hapag-Lloyd and MAN Diesel & Turbo, Germanischer Lloyd (GL) classification society have issued type approval for the AMOT XTS-W+ Bearing Condition Monitor. The XTS-W+ system uses proximity sensors to measure the position deviation of, the crosshead bearing, crankpin bearing and main bearing. There are obvious savings of costly repairs by predicting if and when a repair is required. In addition, classification societies do not require mandatory open-up inspections which sometimes forms the source of other failures. [More]