Press Release

INTERNATIONAL Press Release November 1998

Ship saved thanks to QMI Engine Treatment.

Every ship’s captain and engineer fears the moment when he finds himself drifting without power. All the more so, when a high wind is blowing towards a lee shore.

This is the situation in which the Captain of the "Nyvang", a norwegian cargo ship, found himself while on the coastal route from Bergen to Radal. Suddenly, the engine stopped as the oil pressure fell to zero. Running empty, the ship sat high in the water, offering itself to the westerly storm-force winds .

There was no time for help to come, the wind was rapidly driving the ship towards land. In desperation, the engine was re-started without oil supply, hoping against hope that it would hold.

15 minutes later, they entered harbour.

The ship’s owner, Kurt Einarsen, is convinced that the engine only held out because it had previously been treated with QMI Engine Treatment, an unique product which applies a micronic coating of high density PTFE to the friction surfaces. In normal running, the engine runs with much less friction, and in consequence with less wear and lower fuel consumption. As in the case of the "Nyvang", with oil pressure loss the coating offers an additional safety margin which minimises the risk of engine damage, as well as providing a significant safety reserve in extreme situations.

Kurt Einarsen believes that without the QMI treatment it would not have been possible to re-start the engine at all, but "because of this material, we were successful and we were able to save the ship".

Further information from the QMI importer,

 

Information about the QMI Treatment.

The "Nyvang" is not the only ship which has in recent times benefited from a treatment with QMI’s high density PTFE treatment. Less dramatic, but equally proof of the benefits of using this product, are the oil analyses carried out after treating the camshaft lubrication system of the "Horst Wessel", one of the biggest scandanavian ferries. The findings of the Invicta oil analysis laboratory in Oslo, published in the October 1997 edition of Navigare, the monthly magazine issued by the Norwegian Maritime Directorate, show clearly what protection this product gives. Here again the chief engineer of the ship is very direct in his endorsement of QMI’s treatment. "QMI saved my camshafts" is how he puts it. As is clearly shown in the graph attached, the critical wear metals found in the oil were reduced by more than half.

A similar saving in wear was confirmed by oil analyses in the Volvo TMD 102 auxiliary motor used for power generation on the M/F "Gulen". Tests on the old oil from the five oil changes before the QMI treatment averaged over five times the wear metals that were found four months afterwards. So the treatment had reduced the wear by around 80% ! This is in line with the wear reduction confirmed for the product when subjected to the oil industry’s internationally standardised test, "Sequence III E". Here, in the conventional V-6 car engine always used for this test, the QMI treatment reduced wear in the valve train by 88%, compared with the wear using oil alone. This result is registered with the Chemical Manufacturers‘ Association as the recognised performance of the QMI Engine Treatment.

The QMI treatment (the only product in the world using high density PTFE) is carried out simply by adding the product to the new oil in the engine. It is fully compatible with all engine lubricants. The pressure and heat in the running engine bond the PTFE to the friction surfaces. The coating is robust, and holds through several oil changes before it needs to be re-treated. The friction is dramatically reduced - as an indication, in a car engine the cranking amps during a cold start are typically reduced by around 25% - so the engine runs freer and fuel consumption falls.

QMI’s Engine Treatment commends itself not just as a life-saver. With less wear and the engine running cooler and using less fuel, day-to-day running costs are reduced and maintenance and spare parts requirements fall off. Cooler running extends oil life. Less time is spent in dock on routine and unplanned maintenance, significantly increasing productivity. Further QMI treatments are available for gears, compressors, hydraulics, air tools and as greases, all producing the friction-reducing high density PTFE coating on friction surfaces (which also stops corrosion while the unit is not operating).

 

Not every ship which has an engine failure is driven onto the rocks. But the frequency of engine failure at sea is at a level which no ship’s owner or engineer can afford to ignore. The list of breakdowns in the last 6 years confirms dramatically that no house flag, however prestigious, offers immunity from this probem. According to Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, the cruise ships which regularly appear in the news, with "2000 passengers adrift" represent only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, on the world’s oceans engine failure is a regular occurrance, several times daily, costing millions in rescue and towing actions, not to mention the costs of delay and losses of cargo and life. On average, 1992 – 1997, every six days a ship was lost as a direct result of engine failure.

The Swedish Club also expresses concern about the frequency of marine engine break-downs. Speaking at the CIMAC Congress in Copenhagen in May 1998, Mr. Martin Hernqvist, the insurer’s Loss Prevention Officer, reported that his company alone had dealt with 636 claims for engine damage in the ten years 1988-97, and complained of lack of preventive steps by the manufacturers. He highlighted the fact that the problem was not confined to older units. New engines, particularly the medium speed units, are also prone to break-down to a very worrying degree.

There is no need for these figures to stay so high.

Re-thinking maintenance.

The QMI technology is only now making its way in the conservative shipping world. "Routine" maintenance - so QMI - has over time become a holy ritual, accepted by owners and engineeers alike as inevitable and unchangable, in timing as well as in cost. But the dramatic results already demonstrated by QMI, coupled with the constant pressures from head office to reduce operating costs, surely suffice to make every ship’s engineer seriously re-consider the routines of past years and the now overtaken technlogies.

Such routines are based on procedures and products from the past. In many other industries the QMI products have - also after initial conservative resistance - totally changed the thinking and practice in maintenance routines, and brought dramatic reductions in down-time, as well as in energy, maintenance and spare parts costs. Throughout industry in the USA, and latterly in over 125 other countries too, QMI treatments have gained fullest acceptance since their introduction just over 10 years ago. QMI has through this success become by far the biggest supplier of PTFE treatments to industry world-wide. Convinced users include the world’s biggest nuclear power station, surely a bigger safety concern than any ship. As QMI says, "Friction is friction, wherever, and we reduce it, wherever."