Seakeeper 9 Annual Service Cost

[sum escape]

Have a Seakeeper 9 and just received a quote for roughly $1700 with taxes etc to perform annual maintenance including:
...visual inspection of electric and hydraulic systems, torque foundation bolts to factory specs, replace hydraulic fluid and
pressurize system, inspect accumulators, glycol flush, descale heat exchanger, replace zincs, flow meter check, angle calibration, clean and wipe
down area...
Anyone have any experience to share as to whether this is reasonable or not?

 

[Mambo42]

I only read 'inspect' and a few times change a fluid.
If that is all they are going to do I must say that is a hefty bill. But perhaps that is normal for Seakeeper and am I right that you are not allowed to do that inspection yourself ?

 

[pjnorth]

I can’t say whether it is reasonable or not without knowing how long the various tasks take to complete but I can say that because of the high cost of servicing and buying parts for these high-tech machines, I recently purchased the “silver” extended warranty for $5K which gives me an extra year of coverage on my SK9. I know most extended warranties are scams but I made an exception in this case.

 

[Circumnavigator]

I have commented on the advantages of the Quick Gyro over the Seakeeper several times -- cheaper, smaller, and air cooled.- The air cooling means that much of what is in this invoice does not apply. Also note that the Quick Gyro requires maintenance only every 2000 hours and if you can convince them you are competent mechanically, you can do it yourself. Both Fintry (photo left) and Morning Light (42' Webbers Cove single screw trawler) have Quick Gyros and they are great -- worth every penny.

$1,700 is just another reason to buy Quick.

Jim

 

[sum escape]

From the Hull Truth forum, August 2024......
Most people don't have a clue their gyro is overheating. The gyro starts derating to 50% at a lot lower temperature than 140F, when it derates to 50%, it's only working half as hard and only half as effective but stays running. IF you look at the screen of the unit (which a lot of center consoles don't have, it's on their MFD , you'll see that it's not running at 100% or anywhere near it. On all the yachts with them, there is an air conditioner blowing air conditioned air directly on the unit and they still derate somewhat on a lot of them. I'm not a fan of having a $4000 air conditioner in the bilge just to cool a gyro that should be SELF cooled. Yachts use water cooled generators for the same reason as air cooled would over heat the space it's in. Even when quicks are working properly, they're not as effective as seakeeper.

I have a former customer where quick talked him into installing 2 quick gyros in the engine room of a 63' SF, they promised 70% roll reduction (manufacturer normally installed 2 seakeepers that gave 60%), they didn't do more than 30% roll reduction and kept shutting down. They then installed a third unit, and then a self contained dometic a/c to blow air conditioning on the units, clogging up space the engine room and in the end with 3 units it only reduced roll 50%, cost a fortune, and the owner sued Quick.

 

[Circumnavigator]

That was not my experience on either boat. On Fintry the unit is in the engine room which has 24" diameter intake and exhaust fans, but no air conditioning. The unit sat near a CAT 3406 and a 12kW Northern Lights generator. The gyro was putting around 6kW of heat into the room, which is small compared to that coming off the CAT,

On Morning Light, the unit is in the steering flat, so was the only source of heat. The flat has small solar powered ventilators. Both boats were operated only in New England and Canada, with the boats sitting in water no warmer than 70F. With much hotter water I could see there might be a problem.

As for roll reduction, it was amazing on both boats, Fintry displaces 150 tons light, but the largest Quick unit (3200 pounds in a cube a meter on a side) kept the roll way down until the conditions got to 30 knots on the beam and even then it helped a lot.

Jim

 

[Greg QS]

I had a seakeeper 5 in my last boat. sold it 3 years ago. at the time it was a 900$ service cost. One season it was 2300 since the damping pistons needed to be changed.
I was the last customer able to buy a seakeeper direct for personal install.
Globe failed with in a year, Seakeeper replaced under warrantee.
Unit ran fine until i sold the boat. Yearly service fee of 700-900
2 years in the damping arms needed to be replaced $2300

I think i am going quick gyro this time.

 

[sum escape]

Thanks all. Still getting competitive quotes, a slow process it seems.