<  Paravanes do help at anchor. Ours are 300 sq in. We also can switch
to 400 sq in flopper stoppers. >

Yes, but you have to do it, while I just set the anchor and forget
about it, or just up the hook and steam away; no setting, no
retrieving, no drag, no clearing weed or debris, no flying fish in
heavy weather, and probably still less expense.

I was on a Nord 62 a few years ago, which had every toy that would fit
on a 62 footer.  We were cruising off of Barbados, very steady ride,
then we stopped for lunch in Carlisle Bay, which has quite a swell that
sweeps around the southern point from the Atlantic Ocean.  We were
rolling quite a bit and I asked the owner if it was always like this,
to which he answered that he had some arms that rotated out from the
side of the boat and from which could be hung these rectangular boxes
with rubber flaps, making the water flow one way, in essence fish,
which helped some.  He said he rarely used them as they required some
effort to set and retrieve - this is a boat on which most everything
was setup to be either automatic or powered - and either chose his
anchorages with care or just didn't stop much.  A boat that cost well
north of a mil and he was stuck with a system which neither worked well
nor was compatible with him; he sold the boat the next year.

Luckily, I did that cruise while still in the research stage of
anti-roll devices for my boat.

Bob Phillips,
Another Asylum, Tortola, BVI

Bob:

I owned a Nordhavn 62 for roughly 8 years, and now have on order another
Nordhavn.

The N62 has two different solutions for stabilization. Underway, we had
Naiad stabilzers, and at anchor, we used the system you refer to in your
posting below - Flopper Stoppers.

The Flopper Stoppers, for those not familiar with them, look like Paravanes,
except that they are intended for "at anchor" stabilization only. Two large
"fishing poles" hang from the side of the boat, with large plates dangling
into the water from each pole. The plates have flaps which allow water to
pass one direction, but not the other.

For the first few years that we had our boat, we almost never used the
Flopper Stoppers. We tried a couple of times, and found them tough to
deploy, although we were impressed with how well they worked.

Finally, while in the med, we hit a series of anchorages with serious enough
swell, that we were forced to learn to deploy the stabilizers properly.
After a bit of practice, Roberta and I were able to deploy alone in under 5
minutes. We cheated a bit, and left the "fish" sitting on the deck, so that
all we had to do was dump them overboard when arriving at a new anchorage.

I don't know how to quantify how well the flopper stoppers did at reducing
roll, but I can safely say that I would never have a boat without them. We
were never in an anchorage where we were not the most stable boat. Once we
figured out deployment, the flopper stoppers are awesome!

I've been intrigued by all the discussion on using overhead water tanks for
stabilization. This sounds interesting, but I'd worry about added weight
that far above the waterline.

-Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

"... I was on a Nord 62 a few years ago, which had every toy that would fit
on a 62 footer.  We were cruising off of Barbados, very steady ride,
then we stopped for lunch in Carlisle Bay, which has quite a swell that
sweeps around the southern point from the Atlantic Ocean.  We were
rolling quite a bit and I asked the owner if it was always like this,
to which he answered that he had some arms that rotated out from the
side of the boat and from which could be hung these rectangular boxes
with rubber flaps, making the water flow one way, in essence fish,
which helped some.  He said he rarely used them as they required some
effort to set and retrieve - this is a boat on which most everything
was setup to be either automatic or powered - and either chose his
anchorages with care or just didn't stop much.  A boat that cost well
north of a mil and he was stuck with a system which neither worked well
nor was compatible with him; he sold the boat the next year.

Luckily, I did that cruise while still in the research stage of
anti-roll devices for my boat.

Bob Phillips,
Another Asylum, Tortola, BVI ...