Inflatable fenders for silicone paint vessels
Maersk Inflatable Fenders
Odense, Denmark
Patent No P10716 GB
Historically commercial vessels were painted with an arsenic based compound. This kept the ships hull clean of marine growth but more and more countries started banning arsenic for environmental reasons. The replacement for arsenic is silicone. Silicone however, is very sensitive to mechanical abrasion and conventional hard fenders will scrape the paint off.
Lindstrand was invited to design and construct an inflatable fender that would not damage the paint. This fender was constructed out of drop stitch materials and had a pressure relief valve set at 1.1 bar and with a constant air fill set at 1.0 bar with a non return valve. Hence, at contact with the vessel the fender will take up the load and compress with minimum force on the ship then slowly inflate until it reaches equilibrium. Lindstrand Technologies managed to arrest the world’s largest container vessel, the Emma Maersk at 116,000 tonnes displacement with only two drop stitch fenders at 1.5 x 3 metres each.
Lindstrand Technologies now has a patent pending for these fenders – P170716 GB.
