Making it too easy

[testlab]

Went for a demo in a Maritimo 60 sports cruiser the other day, which was fitted with a Twin Disc Express control system and a gyro-stabiliser. The purpose of the ride was to get a hands-on feel for the Twin Disc system and compare it to Volvo's IPS.

Bloody impressive... able to manoeuver the 60 almost inch by inch around the dock in a 10-15 kt breeze. Not exactly practical for backing down on a decent fish but certainly takes a lot of skill/stress outof driving these size vessels in close quarters.

The gyro was more effective that I'd imagined it would be. Knocked 20-30 deg of roll down to 10 or so.

Nice toys if one has the money. (BTW, I have no tie in or vested interest with the suppliers).

[FNQCairns]

Thanks for that always good to hear about new stuff, after reading your post i went on a search around for boat gyros.

This one uses 3kw to spin up and 1.5 to keep going..the sophistication of boats these days is amazing.

http://www.marinebusiness-world.com/index.cfm?nid=54071

Not even going to try to understand what the twin disk do-dad actually is.

[cbs]

The Gyros are impressive bits of gear. Looked at it very hard a few years ago for a custom 60'er but in the end said no for a couple of reasons. If you can sacrifice the space needed, (large) power requirements (large) and cost (~100k iirc) then it would be a good this to reduce a bit of roll. In our case it wasn't worth it with space at a premium.

Btw, if the maritimo 60 is rolling 20-30 deg easily then I wouldn't suggest taking it out further than you could swim. I trust (hope) this is an exaggeration.

[testlab]

The 20-30 deg comes from watching the pitch gauge on the gyro repeater display. This was a 1.5 - 2.0m swell between Sydney heads and the skipper had deliberatey positioned the boat to get the worst (stationary) broadside condition for the demo. It wasn't a continuous roll to this extent - that was the occasional limit dpendent on swell.

This was a 250 kg (or 350??) unit, 3kW to start, 1.5kW to sustain, so they certainly suck some power, but it makes a big difference to the stability. For someone with sea legs its not so important but this would make a nervous nellie feel much more comfortable. And less likely to spill the champers.

I was a bit surprised how wet the M60 sport was. A lot of water tossed aboard, but considering the intended usage I think the hull shape is more about maximising usable space below than throwing the spray wide. The ride itself was quite good.

The control system impressed me most of all, Twin 730HP Cats and hydraulic thrusters made handling 30tn of cruiser dead simple using a single multifunction joystick.

Made me feel a little miffed actually.. all those years honing my skills manuoevuring 40-60fters on twin screws and now this comes along.