SEAKEEPER DESIRABILITY

This time it was the glycol coolant pump. Most every piece on my units has failed at one point, except the bearings

Sigh... We just got ours in October. Hopefully, newer units have worked some of this out. But, I'll get the forum informed after we get some mileage on it. We're probably an slightly above an average user in terms of hours. Of course, I have no idea what an average user is.

How long have you had it? Do you know the number of hours it's been running before the headaches began.

Mine had the seals fail on a cylinder about a year out of warranty. SK was really good about working with the dealer to pay for the repair under warranty. No issues since then with about 400 hours.

I had gotten a few warning messages about low pressure prior to the seal failing. I called SK support and was told to get a dealer to check it out when possible, no urgency or information about the possible outcome of a seal failure would be. If the seal fails completely when the SK is spun up to speed, the forward/backward pitch of the boat will cause the SK to rock your boat side to side. Luckily for us it was fairly calm at the canyons when it failed. It took us awhile to figure out what was happening.

All things considered, very happy to have retrofitted the SK on my '07 Ocean when I bought it. It makes drifting, anchoring, trolling, staying on a mooring and sometimes being in a slip with waves or surge much more pleasant. For some of my guests it's the difference between a good day or not. When running on plane the advantage is marginal at best. In following seas, I usually turn it off, since it often seems to keep the boat from righting normally after the stern quarter rises with a wave. I also turn it off when running inlets.

Seems one lesson learned would be more urgency on warning messages in spite of response of SK. It's like kid telling you his stomach is upset, other parent says they'll be fine, they throw up all over you.

To add to your comment on your guests, stabilizers are so often the preventative of sea sickness.

Boat and all systems are just about 5 years old now. SK were even worse for first couple years. Constant codes about coolant level, over travel, ect. Techs were on boat at least once a month. One tech said "you won't believe me but your units were built with the wrong control boards" .
He replaced both boards slowed them down a bit and they've been better since.
We got at least one code on every trip for first 2 years.
Units have about 2500 hrs on them now.
New build has two 7HD SK. Specificing them vs the quick was a hard decision. I guess it's the problems you know vs the one's you don't.

Just wondering if anyone has an opinion about the S/K 14 in a 78000# 54 Sportfish.