We looked into these stabilization gyros as part of our investigation into
the stabilization system for Swan Song.
In talking/emailing with the factory engineers it was obvious that this was
the champagne of stabilizers but came with a rare vintage price.
-
We would have required 2 units and a 20KW genset running anytime we
wished them to be on....aka 24/7. So with a 2 GPH fuel consumption to keep
the units spinning AND to run the dedicated Air Conditioning required to
remove the heat load the operating expense became a large issue. 50 GPG X
$2.00 = $100/day! Outside our budget but not a speck in the operation costs
of a superyacht. 2 20k gensets plus a 10-12kw house set. We were on one 150'
not to long ago and there small genset was 100KW with two 200KW one of which
was operation 24/7. 25,000 gal of fuel aboard so who cares!
-
The genset really needs to be operational 24/7 so you need a back-up in
case of genset failure. Another big piece of ER taken away even in our
fairly large ER.
-
The initial cost of the two units and two gensets was over $100K plus the
engineering/installation costs.
We did spend many hours on this and were hoping that the initial estimates
would be wrong by at least a decimal point. In fact they were a bit shy as
most estimates on boating related modifications are. $200K is what my last
estimate was all done operating and sea trialed. This made them a dream as
we didn't jump into them as that would have been a nightmare, IMHO.
I believe if you have a planning hull and are trying to stabilize it then
the force required is less so the system can be smaller. Once you are
talking about the stabilization of a 100,000 displacement hull the required
forces go up dramatically. So do the size, power and cost of the gyros.
Admitted that this was an early look but I can't see anything in the
referenced websites that would lead me to believe that there have been any
significant breakthroughs in and of those three issues...size, power
required and cost.
As always YMMV.....
Dave & Nancy
Swan Song
Roughwater 58
Caribbean Cruise '07
We looked into these stabilization gyros as part of our investigation into
the stabilization system for Swan Song.
In talking/emailing with the factory engineers it was obvious that this was
the champagne of stabilizers but came with a rare vintage price.
1. We would have required 2 units and a 20KW genset running anytime we
wished them to be on....aka 24/7. So with a 2 GPH fuel consumption to keep
the units spinning AND to run the dedicated Air Conditioning required to
remove the heat load the operating expense became a large issue. 50 GPG X
$2.00 = $100/day! Outside our budget but not a speck in the operation costs
of a superyacht. 2 20k gensets plus a 10-12kw house set. We were on one 150'
not to long ago and there small genset was 100KW with two 200KW one of which
was operation 24/7. 25,000 gal of fuel aboard so who cares!
2. The genset really needs to be operational 24/7 so you need a back-up in
case of genset failure. Another big piece of ER taken away even in our
fairly large ER.
3. The initial cost of the two units and two gensets was over $100K plus the
engineering/installation costs.
We did spend many hours on this and were hoping that the initial estimates
would be wrong by at least a decimal point. In fact they were a bit shy as
most estimates on boating related modifications are. $200K is what my last
estimate was all done operating and sea trialed. This made them a dream as
we didn't jump into them as that would have been a nightmare, IMHO.
I believe if you have a planning hull and are trying to stabilize it then
the force required is less so the system can be smaller. Once you are
talking about the stabilization of a 100,000 displacement hull the required
forces go up dramatically. So do the size, power and cost of the gyros.
Admitted that this was an early look but I can't see anything in the
referenced websites that would lead me to believe that there have been any
significant breakthroughs in and of those three issues...size, power
required and cost.
As always YMMV.....
Dave & Nancy
Swan Song
Roughwater 58
Caribbean Cruise '07
