Page 17: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 1998)

Valmet Supplies Gear Drives for Blue Sea

Valmet Power Transmission Inc. of Finland has designed and manu- factured the propulsion gear drives for the luxury cruise vessel Blue

Sea which is currently being built by T. Mariotti SpA in Italy for V.

Ships of Monaco. The gearboxes have been designed for easy main- tenance and for extremely low operation noise to increase passen- ger comfort. Valmet's two twin input/single output horizontally offset reduction gears are driven by four Wartsila 8L38 main engines producing a power of 4 x 5,280 kW at 600 rpm. Each propeller is pow- ered by two engines through one gearbox and rotates at a speed of 119.4 rpm.

As for noise control, significant improvements have been reached by modifying the gear geometry and by profile-correcting the gear teeth to suit the application and the load conditions in question.

Further, Valmet has equipped each gearbox with two multi-disc clutch- es.

This arrangement makes it pos- sible to maintain the main diesels while cruising. One pair of the diesels can be disengaged for main- tenance while the remaining two can be used for cruising, thus the vessel will not need to be taken out of service for the maintenance.

Osprey Will Not Proceed

With Bond Issue

Osprey Maritime Ltd. has decid- ed not to proceed with its bond issue. Osprey said that it was exploring various alternative financing arrangements to a bond issue including possible disposals of certain assets.

The group was recognizing an exceptional loss of $1.75 million, which relates to the write-off of the estimated cost incurred in connec- tion with the bond issue. Osprey was considering a $500 million bond issue and various refinancing plans for a $944 syndicated loan it obtained when it bought gas ship- ping firm Gotaas-Larsen in 1997.

United Arab Shipping Adds

Eighth Vessel To Fleet

United Arab Shipping Co. (UASC) will receive the eighth new vessel from a consortium led by

Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI).

The Kuwait-based firm was sched- uled to take delivery of the vessel

Deira on Sept. 21 and the last two vessels will be delivered shortly after, according to a UASC state- ment. UASC in 1996 signed a $653.77 million deal to buy 10 new ships, each with capacity for 3,800 containers, from the consortium.

It currently operates a fleet of 51 ships.

MC Shipping Buys Four

Maersk Ships

MC Shipping Inc. has acquired four mid-1970s built 2,000 TEU containerships from Denmark's

A.P Moeller Group. The Anders

Maersk and three other sister ves- sels will be chartered back to

Moeller's Maersk Line for a mini- mum period of three years.

MC Shipping expect the vessels to significantly help its bottom line. The ships received refur- bished engines in Japan in 1984 and can deliver a speed about 15 percent faster than average for comparable size vessels. /LJTI

TALK SHIP-TO-SHIP.

DISPATCH SERVICE VESSJELS.-

TRANSMIT DATA.

CALL YOUR KIDS TO REASSURE THEM THAT

YOU HAVEN'T SEEN A SINGLE SEA MONSTER.

YET.

American Mobile

Of course, your kids-or whoever-worry about you. After all, it's lonely out there. You probably can't even see the shore very often. But, you can communicate with the shore. Or with any other place or person for that matter. Because American Mobile brings you reliable, secure SkycelP satellite communications.

All across North America, hundreds of miles offshore, throughout the Caribbean. Just call 800-872-6222 ext. 220 or visit unvw.AmMobile.com for complete information. STAY IN TOUCH

October, 1998 Circle 208 on Reader Service Card 17