The new Seakeeper 18 is aimed at 65-75ft motor yachts weighing up to 56 tons and offers at-rest stabilisation via a gyroscope
It’s amazing to think that Seakeeper has only been with us for just over a decade – the very first Seakeeper stabiliser to be sold was in 2008. Today the 200-employee strong business has a range of 11 units (nine for leisure boats, two commercial) that cover most sizes and styles of boat from 27ft through to 85ft, and even larger if you install more than one unit.
All Seakeepers work in the same way. Spinning a flywheel in a vacuum at speeds of over 500mph creates a strong gyroscopic effect, the ability of the rotating body to maintain a steady direction of its axis of rotation. It’s why motorcycles don’t fall over once the wheels are rolling at speed.
Once you have an object determined to remain resolutely upright then you have something solid to push against, and it’s that ability that allows the hydraulics to resist roll. It’s a very different concept to fin stabilisers that physically push against the sea, and has the advantage of zero drag and all the mechanical parts remaining inside the boat. Plus it will work at any speed, right down to zero.
New to the range is the Seakeeper 18. Designed for boats in the 65ft-75ft range or up to 56 tonnes, it’s the same size and weight as the Seakeeper 16 but spins faster, developing 18,000 Newton-meter-seconds of angular momentum instead of the Seakeeper 16’s 16,000 Nms. It means that boats that previously required two smaller Seakeeper units to generate sufficient stabilisation can now be fitted with one more powerful unit.
The Seakeeper 18 retails for £117,144.
