Seasick cartoon

Rolling downwind is the bane of a sailor's life, especially on long passages or when taking non sailors out for the day. Now from the land of high tech (and power hungry) solutions across the pond comes the Seakeeper M8000 Gyro Stabilization system.

It's a gyro that counteracts the rolling motion and the manufacturers say it "...........means that yacht owners can enjoy a leisurely lunch in rough seas, guests can stroll the deck safely, and everyone can sleep in comfort. For sportfishermen, a Seakeeper gyro can mean more days out when big water leaves others at the dock, without the spine-jarring pounding on the trip to a hotspot and back."

Sounds good doesn't it? It's only when I got to the more technical bits that I began to wonder if many Little Ship Club skippers have boats on the right scale. It measures 1 metre x 1metre x 0.75 metres, and weighs half a ton, and it needs a 3 kilowatt generator running to power it. So it would really suit a boat that resembles an aircraft carrier, but we don't have any of those do we?

But I thought it would be good to see if we could help their marketing efforts in the UK, so I'm going to suggest they supply a demo unit to fit in our Managing Editor's  Trapper 300 - even if we don't connect it up, the extra weight should be good ballast and that might help with the rolling don't you think?

Watch the promotional video and read more about this technology at the Seakeeper website.