Retrofitting THE SHIP MT Elisabeth Knutsen / Tanker THE CHALLENGE The MT/Elisabeth Knutsen has covered the North Sea under the British flag for 15 years. The 265 m long crude oil tanker, with a tonnage of 71,850 GT (dead weight: 124,758 tons), was docked for just three weeks in the shipyard at Danzig. Within this short time frame, apart from other repair and maintenance work, the couplings of the main drive also needed to be replaced. The four torsionally flexible main drive couplings were replaced thereafter following 100,000 hours of operation Detlef Sauer, the service technician responsible at VULKAN Couplings, was clear about the challenges faced by both him and his team: "The two couplings of the main drive that we had to disassemble first had a diameter of two metres each, and each o

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