Hello all,

This winter I installed a Seakeeper 9 on my 2003 Carver Voyager 570. The stabilizer is as far back as it can be on the center line in the engine room. This was pretty much the only location available and also seemed like a good location.

Fast forward to this spring. The boat which has always been a little stern heavy, especially when full of fuel, went into the water with about 1/3 tank of fuel. It sat a little stern low but nothing worse than I'd seen previously.

This spring I also noticed that I wasn't able to make maximum RPMs on the engines nor was I able to hit the 30ish knots I'd previously been able to achieve. I had my props tuned this winter so that represents another variable. Once the boat went in the water I went about reconfiguring some of the weight on the boat. I added a set of spare props and located them as far forward as possible and on the starboard side to counteract a little bit of port list, likely coming from my dinghy.

So, this weekend I filled the boat with fuel. That was an addition of about 550 gallons of fuel which is just over two tons of fuel. The fuel tanks are located about two feet forward of the front edge of the Seakeeper, but overall still pretty far back in the boat. With the tanks full the bottom of the swim platform is just touching the water. A protractor shows about 3 degrees stern low.

The Seakeeper weighs 1,200 pounds, the structure added for it is about 300 pounds and there's probably close to 100 pounds of ancillary gear for it.

I've added 1200 pounds of sand to the bow to try and figure out what it's going to take to regain the trim on the boat. The sand is located under the front berth in the VIP which is pretty darn far forward. So, the question is, how much more weight do I add? I am nervous about putting too much weight in one specific spot as well as just adding more weight to the boat overall. I'd definitely welcome any insight.

Thanks
Ben