The UK’s leading marine power and electrical engineering specialist – Teesside based MJR Power and Automation – has this month announced the successful completion of a second ballast control system replacement for Stena Line.
The replacement of the ballast control system is the second to be successfully delivered by MJR for Stena Line and was carried out on their Stena Hibernia vessel earlier this year whilst in dry dock at Harland and Wolff’s Belfast yard.
The newly integrated control system, utilising MJR’s state of the art Marine Automation Platform – MAP OE – controls all aspects of ballast control from valve operation, tank levels and temperature monitoring, to bilge level alarming and automatic heeling control. Tank volumes and weights are calculated in real-time, and data exchanged with the vessel’s loading and stability computer to enable necessary shear force, bending movement and stability calculations.
The ballast control system was integrated with the existing instrumentation, and existing sensors were retained, which led to a significant cost saving and reduced commissioning times. Moreover, intuitive and simple measurement calibration functionalities were provided, contributing significantly to the improved measurement accuracy with the new system.
Chosen for its off the shelf hardware, open software platform and UK support, MJR’s MAP OETM platform offers vessel owners the reassurance of a comprehensive, integrated, fully redundant and continuously available architecture, approved by Lloyds Register of Shipping.
Speaking about the project completion, Paul Cairns, Managing Director at MJR said: “We are obviously delighted to have successfully completed our second ballast control system replacement for Stena Line and see our success as a real testament to the skill, flexibility and ingenuity of our engineering and installation team.
“Replacing and Installing a complex system of this size can be challenging and we are very proud of the fact that MJR – through our MAP OE platform – has gained a reputation as the industry provider who can absolutely meet that challenge. We very much look forward to working with Stena-Line on future projects and continuing to build our reputation as the go to provider for these systems.”
MJR’s first ballast control system replacement was successfully completed for the Stena Scotia vessel in July last year. The work was successfully carried out whilst the vessel was in full operation with installation and testing of the new system in parallel to the existing system to allow for efficient switchover giving Stena Line full availability with limited interruptions to sailing schedule.
