Scott Hansen, West Coast regional sales manager at Karl Senner LLC, recently put a new gear in the Kodiak, Alaska-based trawler, the Elizabeth F.
“It’s Reintjes gear,” says Hansen. “They experienced a failure in their CPP system, that’s controllable pitch propeller, and it forced an early end to their fishing season. Given the vessel’s operational profile, the CPP system was deemed unnecessary, and a fixed pitch configuration was adopted.”
According to Hansen, the retrofit included the installation of a Reintjes WF 570 reverse reduction gearbox, a torsional coupling, a 3-station control system, and an external shaft brake. “The project also included a new fixed pitch propeller and tail shaft supplied by Sound Propeller Services of Seattle, Wash.”
The Karl Senner team did the work on site in Kodiak, Hansen reports. “They air freighted the gear from Hameln, Germany, to here in Seattle, and then we sent it to Anchorage, and from there it went by barge down to Kodiak. Then our guys flew up there and did the installation.”
According to Marine Traffic, the 81-foot vessel was built in 1970 and sponsoned at Seward Shipyard in 1990. Hansen notes that the vessel has a 500-hp engine, and while the owners were not having good luck with controllable pitch, they were happy with the Reintjes quality.
“These are very robust gears,” says Hansen. “It’s the way they are engineered. They use bigger bearings, and the way they cut the gear teeth is different. The housing walls are thicker than the competition’s, and that all makes for more longevity.” Hansen adds that apart from the housings, which are cast at outside foundries, the Reintjes gears are manufactured all in-house. “The material goes in one door and the gears come out the other,” he says.
“Karl Senner has been the OEM distributor for Reintjes since 1972,” says Hansen. “But the Reintjes company is a lot older than that.” A lot older, in fact; the Reintjes company began making gears in 1879. The company has a unique history and has been designated as “Future Proof” by the German state of Lower Saxony.
One of the things that makes Reintjes future-proof, according to Hansen, is its ownership structure. “The owner gave the company to the town,” he says. Since 1961, Reintejes GmbH has been owned by the non-profit Eugen Reintje Foundation, which was established to promote health and social care in Hameln. “The profits go to the town,” Hansen says of the unusual ownership structure, where a charitable foundation owns the entire company rather than private shareholders or investors.
“Another thing they have is a hiring process based on an apprenticeship program,” says Hansen. Known as “job shadowing” at Reintjes, the apprenticeship program guarantees Reintjes a steady source of qualified labor. “They might have a guy making a certain part for years,” says Hansen, noting that this depth of knowledge adds to the quality of the Reintjes gears.
