AS SCAN has delivered a steering gear for the Royal Ship "Norge"

AS SCAN is proud to have delivered a steering gear to the Royal Norwegian vessel "Norway". A beautiful older boat from 1937. The project started earlier this year, when Henning Pedersen, who is Business Manager in Steering at AS SCAN, was contacted by the ship's engineer, Marius Rødven. The ship, which is classified as a military ship and classed under "Det Norske Veritas" (DNV), faced a challenge with the replacement of its steering gear, which was mounted in a steering gear room that particularly required a special solution. AS SCAN is known in more than 67 different countries for intelligent solutions and a high level of service, this was the key to a trusting collaboration and that the Norwegian Navy, which purchased the facility, asked if we could help solve the task.

"When we get an enquiry, I automatically become their contact person. I find that it is a great advantage that the customer has one fixed contact person throughout the entire process. It provides a good relationship and makes communication easy for the customer. I met with the Norwegian Navy at KS Norge, where we reviewed various options for implementing a new and modern steering gear on the existing rudder arrangement." says Henning

Time for replacement

Even though the ship is 85 years old, it still has many components from when the ship was built, including the steering gear. Now, however, it was time to replace it with a newer and more efficient model, where the choice fell on a Scan Steering type MT 10,000 with a double pump station.

"When the customer contacted me, there was one challenge in particular that was in focus. It was that the rudder stem went from the underwater hull and up to the upper deck in the steering gear room, and should preferably not be removed. Since the rudder stem is normally brought up through a support bearing and housing, a special solution had to be made for this project", says Henning

Split-type design

Our engineers took up this challenge and in collaboration with the customer we designed a split-type support bearing and quadrant. The special thing about this solution was that the bearing housing, bearing, gasket flanges, gaskets and quadrant were divided into 2 parts. This allowed these parts to be mounted around the rudder stem where they were bolted together. A solution that made it easy for the shipyard to mount the steering gear without having to dismantle the entire rudder arrangement. AS SCAN has been responsible for engineering calculations, 3D design, production and DNV classification approval.

"On an older ship, there are always challenges when older equipment needs to be replaced with new. Scan solved this very well by specially designing parts of the steering machine so that the system can be installed at the shipyard without removing the rudder arrangement. This has saved us both time and money", says the ship's engineer Marius Rødven.

Built for America's Cup

The royal ship "Norge" was originally built as a motor yacht in 1937 by Camper & Nicholson in Southampton. The customer was the aircraft manufacturer Thomas Sopwith, who was to use the ship as the mother vessel for their sailboats in the battle to win America's Cup. The ship, which is 80 meters long, was at the time one of the world's largest. When the Second World War broke out it was taken over by the British Navy and used as an escort vessel for convoys across the Atlantic. In 1946 the vessel was returned to the owner Thomas Sopwith and the following year sold to Norway. The royal ship now has its home port in Oslo, where it is staffed by personnel from the Norwegian Navy with a crew of 54 men.