Seakeeper Ride Releases Pocket Fit Kits

Seakeeper Ride makes a Vessel Attitude Control System (VACS), which greatly reduces the pitch and roll of pleasure craft. The Fort Myers-based company hopes to make boating more comfortable by mounting a rotary blade system on the transom of boats up to 55 feet. The system makes up to 1000 measurements and 100 adjustments every second, and moves at 300 mm per second, keeping the boat more stable with less noticeable movement. The system is also designed to determine the optimal trim of the vessel and adjust it accordingly; trim refers to the angle at which the hull and the propeller penetrate the waves. Differences in trim have a huge effect on fuel economy, comfort, and speed. You can change trim by adjusting the angle of the propeller itself or by adjusting the trim tabs, which move up and down to alter the angle of the boat in the water.

Seakeeper is offered as an option on some new boats, but if you wish to install it on your existing boat, you may need a Pocket Fit Kit. Many boats have transom pockets that hold trim tabs. These will have to be replaced if Seakeeper is to be installed. With hundreds of brands of boats and thousands of models going back decades, this gives Seakeeper a bit of a technological challenge. You could have a carbon fiber specialist make custom carbon fiber parts for you, but this would take a while and be expensive. With a custom PETG 3D printed part, these pockets can be optimally filled less expensively.

Seakeeper CEO Andrew Semprevivo said,

“Boats built today are increasingly designed to accommodate Seakeeper Ride by featuring a flat transom or recessed transom pockets designed specifically around our controllers. The Pocket Fit Kits remove a key barrier to adoption for some aftermarket installations and enable all boaters to modernize existing vessels with complete underway stabilization.”

The company also states that: “Because pocket dimensions vary not only by brand, but by model and even model year, Seakeeper Ride will maintain a digital library of designs generated by leveraging sophisticated scanning technology to produce accurate 3D models. The Pocket Fit Kits will be made-to-order for Seakeeper Ride dealers at a price of $1,000, with the initial offering available on select models from Cobia Boats, Grady-White Boats, and Sea Hunt Boats, with additional brands being added.”

The company aims to deliver the components within a week. Seakeeper has a disruptive product that could find a place on many boats. But with so much geometric variation and such a vast number of existing boats, scaling in the aftermarket would have been extremely difficult without digital manufacturing. Through 3D printing, though, the firm can now cater to potentially any craft eventually. Meanwhile, by capturing revenue, it can gradually expand its library of parts over time. We are cognizant of 3D printing as an MRO solution and to replace rare spare parts. But this kind of case is something we do not think enough of. Sales enablement, or the ability to conquer a market, is very valuable to companies.

Seakeeper can now grow much quicker thanks to 3D printing. A lot of firms out there have similar issues in boating, custom cars, car aftermarket products, but also electrical devices and machinery. In 2021, we wrote a story about enabling the industrial aftermarket, while in 2020, we talked about an aftermarket for everything. The potential of this is huge; the automotive aftermarket alone is roughly $400 billion, but there could be an aftermarket for many things beyond vehicles. And if, in these markets, we can propel certain companies forward to generate more revenue and achieve faster growth, then it could very well be a new, successful avenue for us to explore.