The Global Mercy™ looks like a cruise ship at first glance—gleaming white, towering decks, and the size of a small city block. But step inside and you’ll find something far more extraordinary: six operating theatres, eight ICU beds, and nearly 200 hospital beds, all dedicated to serving people who otherwise would never see a doctor.
This summer in Cádiz, the world’s largest civilian hospital ship welcomed two visitors from Bender: Dorothea Bender-Fernández, Chairwoman of the Bender Group, and Benjamin Greiff, the company’s Global Market Segment Manager for Maritime. They came not as patients or doctors, but to meet the man who keeps this floating hospital alive with electricity – Chief Electro-Technical Officer Renier Marx.
And Renier had a story to tell.
“Every day on board, we see miracles,” Renier begins as he guides his guests through bright hospital corridors. “Children with bowed legs walk straight for the first time. Cataracts are removed, and someone clearly sees their loved one’s face again. But behind every surgery, every light, every beeping monitor—there’s electricity. Without safe power, none of this happens.”
The challenge? Earth faults.
Electrical faults might not sound dramatic compared to life-saving surgery, but for Renier’s small team, they were once a nightmare.
When the Global Mercy™ was delivered during the COVID pandemic, the crew found themselves battling a sea of electrical gremlins.
“Earth faults popped up everywhere,” Renier recalls. “But the installed system couldn’t tell us where. So we had to switch off entire systems, one by one, hoping to catch the fault. Imagine doing that in a fully running hospital – you simply can’t. Patients don’t stop needing care just because you need to check a wire.“
He laughs, but it’s the kind of laugh that remembers sleepless nights. “We spent weeks, sometimes months, hunting for faults that would disappear the moment we thought we’d found them. It was like hide-and-seek.”
That’s when Bender stepped in.
Renier still remembers the first time his crew used the new insulation monitoring and earth fault location devices. “Suddenly, everything was easy. The Bender system told us where the fault was! We walked right to it. Honestly, there were so many ‘aha!’ moments we lost count.”
Dorothea remarks: “So finding earth faults became almost… fun?”
Renier grins. “Exactly. We went from months to weeks to minutes to find earth faults. And it’s always a joy when you get to fix something”
The new system didn’t just save time; it gave Renier and his crew peace of mind.
“When you don’t know where a fault is, it keeps you awake at night. You imagine worst-case scenarios – what if it takes down a critical system during surgery? But now we see exactly what’s happening, in real time. We can fix issues before they become dangerous. That kind of clarity is priceless.”
Even patterns in the data tell a story. Faults appearing at night in the rainy season pointed to outside lights. A slowly deteriorating motor revealed itself through subtle changes in insulation.
Benjamin sums it up:
“The Global Mercy™ doctors restore eyesight to patients. With Bender technology, the ship’s engineers clear the fog of insulation faults in their electrical systems. Both are about giving people back clarity and confidence.”
On the world’s largest hospital ship, saving lives and keeping the lights on are inseparably linked. Thanks to Bender’s solutions, earth faults are now welcomed as opportunities to improve the system. They no longer spell disruption, but proof that safety and simplicity can coexist, even on the high seas.
And that’s why the Global Mercy™ crew now says something no one ever expected: we love earth faults. Because when finding faults is simple, the ship can focus on what matters most — restoring hope, healing, and life itself.
