Seakeeper expands production

by Peter A. Janssen 4 Feb 2018 07:53 UTC

Seakeeper © Cruising Odyssey

Seakeeper is on a roll. Well, that's a terrible misstatement. Actually, Seakeeper reduces rolling on recreational boats by 80 to 90 percent. It makes boating fun again for many, many people who don't want to roll from side to side while underway or at anchor.

It's the Seakeeper company that's on a roll. Indeed, Seakeeper is a modern success story, finding new owners across many diverse boat lines and making more and more gyro stabilizers each year. In fact, Seakeeper is going to increase its capacity so it can produce 6,000 new gyros in its factory in Mohnton, PA this year – compared to 2,000 in 2017. Everybody, it seems, now wants a Seakeeper, on recreational boats from 30 feet on up.

I first experienced a Seakeeper about ten years ago on an Azimut that was probably 55 or 60 feet in Atlantic City with Seakeeper co-founder Shep McKenney, who previously had been president of Hinckley, where he introduced the Picnic Boat and the Jetstick. On the Azimut, he was showing a group of owners the benefits of an early Seakeeper, which reduced rolling out in the Atlantic so much that by the time we were back at the dock almost everybody said they wanted one.

I had the same experience last fall on a new MJM 35 with our publisher, George Day, and MJM founder Bob Johnstone, off Newport, Rhode Island, when Johnstone turned on the boat's Seakeeper and reduced roll to almost nothing, even when we stopped beam-to the waves. "I'd think everyone would want one," Day said.

Seakeeper works with a flywheel spinning inside a vacuum encapsulation at speeds of up to 9,700 rpm. When the boat rolls from side to side, the gyro tilts fore and aft, producing torque to port and starboard that counteracts the roll. The Seakeeper line for recreational boats now runs from the Seakeeper 3, the first DC-powered gyro, for boats in the 30-to 39-foot range, for $27,000, to the Seakeeper 26 for boats in the 70-to 80-foot range, for $161,800. They can be installed on new boats or refit on many existing ones.

Take a look at the videos below to see Seakeeper in action, or go to: seakeeper.com