Our manoeuvring systems for your fleet

Steering the future of maritime navigation

The Becker Flap Rudder, derived from the innovations of company founder Willi Becker, stands as the most advanced and popular rudder type globally for ship manoeuvrability. It represents the culmination of extensive research and development, making it the most mature flap rudder design in the shipbuilding industry. 

Known for its exceptional balance between manoeuvrability and efficiency, this rudder type is especially effective in crabbing operations, particularly in small ports and river settings. The Becker Flap Rudder design offers options like a twisted profile to minimise cavitation damage and a closed linkage system for enhanced safety.

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Maximise your vessel's efficiency 

Conventional rudders, symmetrically aligned behind the propeller, fail to take the propeller's rotational flow into account, leading to cavitation and erosion on the rudder blade. Addressing this issue, Becker developed the Becker Twist Rudder, which minimises cavitation risks, reduces drag and enhances propulsion efficiency. Its twisted profile allows for higher cavitation-free rudder angles at increased speeds, and the full spade rudder designs prevent both vortex and gap cavitation. 

This not only lowers service and maintenance costs but also reduces noise caused by cavitation, making the Becker Twist Rudder a significant advancement in rudder technology and efficiency for maritime vessels.

Safety and performance combined

The Becker Schilling® Rudder is a high-lift, fishtail profile rudder designed for enhanced manoeuvrability across all vessel sizes and types. It combines high lateral forces with superior course stability, ensuring safety and efficiency. This full spade rudder allows rudder angles up to 70°, ideal for crabbing manoeuvres and dynamic positioning. 

Its wear-free design significantly reduces maintenance costs. Key operational features include minimal rudder hunting for course keeping, excellent astern manoeuvring, and improved turning capabilities at various speeds.

A Becker Nozzle is an advanced nozzle solution that enhances the performance and efficiency of ships. Based on the invention of the Kort nozzle, this technology offers two main variants: the Becker Fixed Nozzle and the Becker Steerable Nozzle.

The Becker Fixed Nozzle significantly improves the ship's bollard pull performance. The Becker Steerable Nozzle, on the other hand, enables a significantly improved manoeuvring performance by generating stronger lateral forces. These nozzles are ideally suited as part of Dynamic Positioning systems, especially due to their outstanding rudder forces at low speeds.

Mastering the seas with ease

Equipped with a low-pressure hydraulic system, the Becker Steering Gear is efficient, space-saving in design, and thus suitable for small steering gear compartments. The integrated bearings and rudder carrier made of durable synthetic materials ensure long-lasting performance with minimal maintenance. The Becker Steering Gear comprises eight types with torques from 160KNm- 500KNm and is designed for smaller vessels, such as supply vessels, fishing boats, anchor handling tug supply vessels and yachts.

Optimised ship handling with the innovative Daggerboard

Integrating a Becker daggerboard, an anti-leeway fin for ships equipped with modern Wind Assisted Propulsion Systems (WAPS), offers significant advantages for drift reduction. By reducing leeway, power can be saved, and navigation can be made more efficient. The Daggerboard from Becker Marine Systems features an effective and slim design that can be integrated into various types of ships. There are two available models: 

• A vertically retractable Daggerboard with an adjustable fin angle.
• A Daggerboard with a fixed fin that can be folded out from the hull.

Compared to the semi-spade rudder, where the heavy rudder horn is integrated into the ship's hull, the full spade rudder utilises the entire rudder area more effectively, as it has no fixed parts like the rudder horn. 

This not only results in higher manoeuvrability through a larger effective rudder area in the propeller jet but also allows for material savings and thus cost reduction due to the smaller size of the rudder. 

Furthermore, the full spade rudder provides better propeller coverage, which is particularly advantageous during manoeuvres such as sideways docking in the port, by more effectively converting the propeller's forward thrust into lateral forces.

Cavitation, a phenomenon where imploding air bubbles can cause material damage, frequently occurs with semi-spade rudders, especially in the gaps between the fixed rudder horn and the movable rudder blade. 

Full spade rudders from Becker Marine Systems are designed to significantly reduce the risk of cavitation. This is achieved by efficiently utilising the entire rudder area and avoiding the convergence of movable and fixed parts. 

This design optimisation ensures smoother operation and minimises the risk of cavitation, especially at high speeds and in demanding manoeuvring conditions, such as those encountered by fast ships like container ships. Thus, full spade rudders offer a more efficient and safer solution for modern shipping.

In terms of propulsion efficiency, the full spade rudder surpasses the semi-spade rudder. It can significantly reduce the power consumption of the ship, as demonstrated by comparative or model tests. The full-spade rudder from Becker not only outperforms semi-spade rudders but also stands out against other full-spade rudder manufacturers thanks to our comprehensive expertise in rudder design. We achieve a significant advantage in propulsion efficiency, compared both to semi-spade and other full-spade rudders.

Our approach to continuously invest in the improvement and innovation of our rudder solutions pays off and represents a crucial component in the pursuit of sustainable and cost-efficient shipping. The proven propulsion efficiency of our full spade rudders underscores our commitment to high-quality, efficient, and future-proof maritime solutions at Becker Marine Systems.

Comparative tests of several ship types at different ship model basins in Europe and Asia
See illustrations.