Cargo Care has made an important contribution in the battle to minimise operating costs.
Cargo Care has made an important contribution in the battle to minimise operating costs. In a difficult year for the shipping industry, with bunker costs rising and shipowners and ship managers finding they can no longer postpone essential maintenance tasks on vessels, it has launched a brand new low wear hatch cover support pad, saving money on fitting, on wear and on man-hours. In coming years a lot of the traditionally fitted Bronze-Teflon type hatch cover bearing pads will need to be changed. Hatch cover support pads are an important part to transfer the vertical forces of the hatch cover into the coaming structure of a vessel. Not replacing the support pads in time can cause an increase of these forces into the coaming structure which can cause severe damage to the coaming and hatch cover. The UltraPad offers the lowest wear on the market today. With a unique locking pin to speed up mounting it is a truly universal product offered in multiple sizes to fit different makes of hatch cover, simplifies maintenance and replaces traditional Bronze Teflon type support pads – at 30 – 40% of the cost, and in a fraction of the time. Without losing quality as the UltraPad is the only hatch cover support pad on the market today with a Germanischer Lloyd Type Approval. “The options for cost control in our industry are limited and we must look to reducing costs in all areas of the business,” says Peter Peltenburg, Group Director of Cargo Care Solutions. “With the typical container vessels having fitted hundreds to thousands of hatch cover support pads – all needing to be regularly inspected and often replaced – any initiative that reduces this burden must be welcomed,“ explains Mr Peltenburg.”Support pads are a critical area which can lead to high ship maintenance costs during service life. The UltraPad provides our customers with the lowest wear rate available on the market today which improves support pad lifetime, and lowers hatch cover maintenance.” An unusual new feature of the new UltraPad is the set of prefabricated grooves of variable depth positioned on areas where the pads wear down most, making detecting wear on the pads speedy and accurate.
