T&T: ART Roll reduction

[Dave Cooper]

Many of you know that Swan Song has an anti-roll tank (ART) that works as
well underway as at rest. You can check the archives for the how, what and
where of it.

We are currently on a mooring of the Balboa Yacht Club along side the
traffic lane of the Panama Canal. About a 100' from red #16 for those that
might have the charts.

The traffic thru the canal, even tho it is down from normal, still provides
a level of wake that could be bothersome (1' to 6' on average). Most folks
don't want to moor here because of it. One was large enough to have our 15'
tender try to board Swan Song!

Swan Song just sits here day after day not spilling a wine or champagne
glass no matter what the wake situation is. The Port Capitan when he was
aboard commented on it as the boats around us rolled. Even the 50' cat to
our starboard is rolling way more then we do.

Our agent, Peter Stevens, has now been aboard several times and is amazed
that his beer just sits unattended while the boats around us roll there
insides out.

We continue to be impressed with this low cost, zero maintenance, no power
system. ART allows us to just forget about roll for all intense purposes.
All who come aboard notice its effects immediately.

I still don't understand why more naval architects don't use this method.
Maybe its some Kool-aid thing or that it flies in the face of
expense/maintenance/etc. I just don't know.

Other than Bob Phillips in the BVI on Another Asylum and us I don't know of
any other cruising boats using ART.

Seahorse John will agree that it does the job :-)

Now if we could just get a device to eliminate pitch, falling thru waves and
heel we'd have a real neat system....magic carpet anyone?

Disclaimer...I have no interest in any of this. There is no company to buy
one from nor do I make them for anyone. It is a DIY operation of several
folks. Some of it costs money and some is your own labor and management
skills to get others to do what you want.



Dave & Nancy
Swan Song
Roughwater 58
Hawaii Passage '08/09