I was searching the internet for images of Trim Tabs. I was surprised by the search engine results. The first was a boat named, “Trim Tab” with beautiful women sunbathing on its deck; the next was a Tomb Stone. What better results – sex and death – two things that define life. But, don’t be dismayed. This is anything but a bad omen. I clicked through and what appeared is a photograph of the graves of the visionary inventor Buckminster Fuller, and his wife, Anne Hewlett. Inscribed prominently at their gravesite are the words, “CALL ME TRIM TAB, Bucky.”
Digging deeper into the inspiration for such an epitat, I came upon the following exchange from a February, 1972 interview of Buckminster Fuller in Playboy Magazine:
PLAYBOY: “Isn’t it part of that packaging a sense of the individual impotence to affect events, to prove or even influence our own welfare, let alone that of society?” – Buckminster Fuller Interview, Playboy Magazine, February, 1972
FULLER: Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Elizabeth again: The whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing on the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving that little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. It takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole ship of state is going to turn around. So I said, ‘Call me Trim Tab.'”
Install Aquahance Pods on vessel trim tabs and follow the ”Evans Flow” that organizes, accelerates and increases the volume of water moving past the Pod patented shape. This pushes further from the vessel the rooster tail indicative of backwash. Evidence of improved hull efficiency is apparent by a well-organized wake, resulting in higher attainable speeds and a potential of realizing lower fuel consumption.
Visit “Wake Up” for examples of wake pattern changes evidence of improved aft flow, and please Share Your Wake (and fuel consumption records before a after installation if you quantify.)