Maritime safety equipment manufacturer and global servicing provider VIKING Life-Saving Equipment has signed with Rosenby Engineering to exclusively distribute the award-winning Danish startup’s HydroPen™ fire extinguishing system for container vessels.

Forward leap

VIKING’s Product Management and New Building Director, Jørgen Holm, sees the HydroPen™ System as a leap forward for protecting container vessels, their cargo and crew from one of modern shipping’s most hazardous situations.

“Traditionally, container fires at heights above the reach of the crew have been fought indirectly by dousing the burning container and its surroundings with water,” he explains, “It’s a drawn-out approach and does not address the fire in the container directly. The HydroPen™ System is a new innovative and ground-breaking technology that enables crew to effectively and efficiently fight container fires at significant heights in the stack.”

With many dangerous, sometimes insufficiently declared goods in transit on today’s container vessels, a container fire can put crew, cargo and a shipowner’s business at serious risk. Such fires are extremely difficult to target with current methods, and the task becomes even more difficult when the burning container is high up in the vessel’s container stack.

Jørgen Holm is confident that the new agreement with HydroPen™ inventor Rosenby Engineering will bring added peace of mind to VIKING’s customers around the world. “Our exclusive distributorship of the product will ensure the HydroPen™ System benefits can reach shipowners around the globe, providing increased protection for both people and business,” he says.

Efficient extinguishing

Powered solely by water pressure from the fire main, the HydroPen™ System is an intelligently designed, water-based drilling machine that is able to drill through a standard steel container door, then switch mode to spray water profusely inside the container. All crew need to do is to hoist the HydroPen™ drilling/spraying unit up using its telescopic lift to the doors of the burning container. The drilling and extinguishing process is then carried out automatically and with minimal risk to the crew.

Rosenby Engineering’s Chief Technical Officer, Jesper Rosenfeldt Hansen, joins the company’s co-founder, Martin Winkel, in acknowledging the significant role VIKING will play in taking the HydroPen™ System to the global market: “Our focus is firmly on creating the best possible solutions to the problems faced by shipowners. And the agreement with VIKING ensures the HydroPen™ System can deliver its significant advantages to advance safety aboard container vessels of all types.”