While performing routine lip seal maintenance on a NAIAD Stabilizer System on a 120 foot Custom Yacht; we found excessive amounts of corrosion on the external side of the housing. The corrosion was so bad we could not remove the plates in order to replace the seals.
An important component to the comfort and safety of any vessel, the principle behind NAIAD fin stabilization is to counteract the tendency of a vessel to roll with an equivalent and opposite righting moment applied in exactly the proper phase and proportion. These righting moment forces are typically generated from a pair of underwater fins, although other control surfaces are also available. Wave forces are thus prevented from aggravating the vessel’s natural tendency to roll.
Once the fins were removed from the NAIAD Stabilizer, the corrosion on the shaft and in the bearings was so significant that the shaft could not be removed using the most common methods. In order to get the shaft out, we built a special hydraulic press to drive the shaft out of the boat. With the shafts out, we then worked with NAIAD to upgrade the system to the next larger size unit.
Upgrading to the next size required a new housing which required fiberglass modifications to resize the hole in the hull.
What started out as a routine job turned into a complete replacement and modification to the yacht in order to guarantee continued high performance and comfort at sea.