Langh Wins Maritime Safety Prize

Finnish Minister of Transport and Communications Leena Luhtanen will present the maritime safety prize to staff representatives of the Langh Ship shipping company onboard the icebreaker Sisu. The prize is awarded for the company’s approach to their work, which has enhanced safety at sea and resulted in their operating efficiently and economically. The shipping company, based in Piikkiö near Turku in south-west Finland, specializes in export deliveries of the Finnish steel industry’s heavy products. The transportation of bulky steel coils has caused problems ever since their production started. Coils loaded onto the tank top have been known to make vessels over-stable, causing them to roll violently in rough conditions. Such violent rolling makes it difficult to work and rest, and in order to regulate the motion, the ship’s center of gravity must be raised. Langh Ship developed the tweendeck as a possible solution, and in tests, it effectively controls such rolling. As soon as the first cradle tweendeck had been set in position the crew measured the effects on seafaring in rough seas and found that in the same weather conditions and with the same cargo the ship rolled only 10 degrees to the original thirty and the time for the rolling period extended from five to 12 seconds.