SEAKEEPER DESIRABILITY

Lots of hype, lots of money, lots of codes, fair amount of maintenance
Does reduce roll at slow speeds in the correct boat.

I have 5200 hrs of run time with seakeepers. Many hrs working on them and a dozen conversations with their techs and engineers going over all the issues. This engineer doesn't sugar coat it, I tell it straight, good or bad. They greatly reduce the roll but are maintenance headaches and don't last nearly like seakeeper says.
Your money your boat your issues.

Do you realize you're insulting his intelligence?

I think he read, he evaluated, and he's decided his personal preference. I feel he's fully capable of understanding and considering it all.

I've evaluated Seakeepers, tested them, talked to owners and captains and chosen not to buy any. However, if I was buying the boat he's talking about, I'd include one and then make sure it had the best possible preventive maintenance. Meanwhile I own a 39' CC and don't have or need one, but different brand boat, and I've got one on order without a Seakeeper, also different brand and different use.

They have their place and we had a very happy user post here. There are thousands of happy users. There are also unhappy ones. However, I can assure you jsschieff is fully capable of reading, understanding, analyzing and making informed decisions. They may or may not be the decisions others of us would make.

May I ask a question about the smaller Seakeepers?

I know the very big ones take a long time to get up to speed and stabalize. I'm guessing the small ones are pretty quick. Am I right?

Even the small ones take 36 minutes to stabilization and 50 minutes to full RPM.

I upgraded my 54’ Flybridge with an ARG (anti roll gyro) installed by American Spin Doctors. Air cooled vs water cooked like Seakeeper. So far so good; low speed, anchor and chop its great. Beam swells it works ok; you still get the first swell but it tempers the resulting roll … until the next swell. I love how you can feel it counteract the roll.

I’m enthusiastic about it. It’s a wife /guest pleaser, it should be a good resell feature, and installation was a generally straightforward We built up the stringers in my lazeretre and installed the control box in a cabinet next to my stereo equipment.

Nice job...

We just bought a 44 center console. I wouldn’t consider one without for resale alone. And they seem ( via sea trial) pretty great.

As a side note, why do some of these threads turn caustic? Doesn't make sense to me. I mean, opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. Let people just discuss and converse.

Back on topic -
I'm just an owner and far from a boating expert (Captain), like many others on this forum. So, excuse my limited 'technical' vocabulary. We just got the Regulator October in '21, so I can't speak to cost of ownership in terms on maintenance.

The Regulator is a deep V boat. Great for chopping through the waves, and provides a very "soft" landing. It just chews up the seas. However, the deep V means it's a wet boat (much wetter than the Southport), and I've heard complaints people think it's "rolls too much". But, you have to pick you poison.

The combo of Regulator & SK is pretty awesome combo. For us, we love it. But, your mileage may vary depending on the hull designs.

Take it for what it's worth, I've heard on the docks. Only get one for a boat that was designed for it, doing a retro-mod could be a challenging as the hull wasn't designed for the stress. But, again... I'm no expert.

And the Regulator is very similar in that regard to the Boston Whaler being discussed. Again, we have a 39' Contender, used mainly for day boating by crew, no need for Seakeeper, but for a Whaler and many others I'd highly recommend it.

I have read the comments and I understand that they are more expensive to maintain than not having one. That being said having had a Seakeeper 9 in our C49 Tiara I can add some comments from owning one. We had to replace the two cylinders last summer as they were leaking. Chose to install new ones instead of repacking them. It works best in a slip and a beam sea. We typically don't run it while under way unless we know what conditions we are going to have, Lake Michigan. We have owned several joystick boats, Mercury and Volvo, and we were told to stay away from them too because of expense to purchase and complexity yet when selling them I had buyers lined up bidding against each other. The SeaKeeper is no different. Ordered a boat to keep in the Keys and checked the box for the SeaKeeper. It's a no brainer even though it was $40k. Only caveat is that on the higher speed setting they do make noise, at 7200 it's pretty quiet.

Just finished 5 days fishing crooked and diana's bank. Beautiful weather and fishing was good. Boat runs nonstop from 6:15 am til 5:30 pm every fishing day. As with all boats this size, mine has gyros, gennys, ac, watermaker, spotzero, ect, ect. Lots of stuff fail or be cranky. This trip like many only had one piece of equipment fail. Won't point out the obvious but you all know which one!
Seakeepers provide great stability in most slow speed situations but if they're broken they are nothing more then additional ballast I don't want.
My rub with so many "new" things is the engineering dept is designing great products that will last but they're over ruled by the marketing department to make it faster and cheaper.

What failed on your Seakeeper? Easy or difficult to repair? Thanks