Boat roll can lead to tiredness and seasickness , increasing the likelihood of accidents as it reduces the crew’s efficiency and, in turn, that of the vessel.Fitting stabilisers has always involved external appendages which can cause danger to divers and other vessels in close proximity and can also easily snag on lines as they move at random . Fins require massive amounts of power (particularly at rest and slow speed) and need to be regularly maintained . The Seakeeper SK7000 gyro stabiliser, to be seen on Atlantis Marine’s stand 165 at Seawork, changes the situation entirely. Mounted inside the boat, it has no external appendages, uses little power, is completely self contained and needs little maintenance
There is nothing new about using a control moment gyro to stabilise boats. The theory has been in existence for centuries and the earliest applications go back to the early 20th century, when Otto Schlick’s concept was proven and adopted on large military vessels. However, it was too heavy and used too much power to be used in smaller boats. Thus the workboat problem persisted until Seakeeper came along
With many years experience in the stabilisation industry, Seakeeper’s developers realised that by running the flywheel inside a partial vacuum, that vacuum would allow the rotor to spin at 10,000 rpm, generating far greater righting forces for a given size, weight and power than was previously possible. To further increase its effectiveness the Seakeeper uses active braking to automatically compensate for changing sea conditions
With thousands of hours of testing and numerous installations already on the water, Atlantis Marine is confident that Seakeeper can be fitted to most vessels. A single Seakeeper SK7000 will work on vessels of up to 30 tons and for larger vessels multiple gyros can be fitted. If you’re turning green on the Seawork pontoon, pay a visit to the Atlantis Marine stand.
