Engines dominate research ship work

The 54.59m long, 12.5m wide Heincke, in operation with the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven, was at specialist engine yard Motorenwerke Bremerhaven (MWB).

The Government-owned ship was staying until February 10^th for extensive work including the exchange of her three old 525kW KHD-MWM TDB-604 L 6 main engines which AWI said were no longer economical for “comparable” D 3842 630kW units from MAN. HUG soot particle filters and downstream SCR devices were also being installed to meet new ecological demands on the old ship.

Also at MWB as of mid December was the country’s youngest research ship, the 94.8m long and 19.2m wide Government-owned Maria S Merian.

She arrived in late July and was still at the yard as of late December for work related to her Schottel pod/Pump-Jet propulsion system. It was believed the work centred on repairs to her port pod and on inspection and possible overhaul of her starboard pod.

Berlin had not commented officially on the work as of December. However propulsion system problems have dogged the ship since she went into service in 2006. The Government acknowledged recently that mainly pod-related difficulties since then had put Maria S Merian out of action for a total of 588 days and had cost Berlin half a million Euros in repair costs.

Heincke’s identical sister Alkor was meantime docked at Kiel’s Lindenau Schiffswerft – one of three yards in the ADM-owned Privinvest group – for work including repairs to her Becker rudder.

ADM’s Myriam Thoma-Hargens told Maritime Journal experts from Becker Marine Systems removed, repaired and re-installed the rudder in the yard’s Dock 11 with the help of Lindenau personnel. Other general work on Alkor included underwater hull cleaning and a variety of pipe maintenance.

Alkor, completed in 1990 at Cassens Werft in Emden, is operated by IFM Geomar – the Leibniz Institute of ocean sciences – in Kiel.

Finally, a third medium-sized German research ship – the 60.8m long and 11.4m wide Poseidon – was at another Privinvest Group shipyard, Lindenau sister facility Nobiskrug in Rendsburg in December for work including engine exchange.

The 38 year old Poseidon docked in late October and had been due to leave about mid December after six weeks of general maintenance. However Ms Thoma-Hargens told Maritime Journal repair time had been extended by two weeks because of further steelworks required by GL.

The job included the replacement of the ship’s three MTU 12V 2000 M40A Diesels of 575kW with reconditioned engines of the same type but built to modern IMO TIER II emission control standards.

By Tom Todd