What are active fin stabilizers mainly designed to reduce while a cruise ship is moving?
Show answer & explanation
Answer: Rolling felt on board
Rolling felt on board ✓ — Right. Active fin stabilizers change their angle in moving water to create heeling moments that oppose roll. Wärtsilä notes that they require forward motion to develop lift, which is why they are best thought of as motion reducers. The everyday analogy is airplane wings in water, not hidden outriggers holding the ship up.
Static dockside safety — Almost, but this overstates the fins. A ship's static dockside capsize margin comes from hull form, loading, GM, and the righting-arm curve. Fins are more like ride-control surfaces: useful for comfort and roll damping while moving, but not a replacement for intact stability.
Displacement and draft — No. Displacement and draft are set by the ship's weight, hull form, loading, and ballast. Stabilizers can add drag and control forces while underway, but they do not decide how deep the hull sits. The ship still obeys Archimedes' principle before the fins do anything.
More Transportation questions
- Why is it misleading to say that single-track vehicles like motorcycles mainly lean and stay stable because their wheels act like gyroscopes?
- Why does the front wheel of a leaned motorcycle often seem to find a useful steering angle without the rider holding it rigidly?
- Why can a tilted motorcycle tire help push the bike sideways through a curve instead of just rolling straight ahead?
- Why does taking the same motorcycle curve faster require noticeably more lean?
- Why does the bike-rider system need a lean angle when a motorcycle follows a steady road-speed curve?
- What actually happens just after a rider pushes the left grip forward to begin leaning a motorcycle left?
