Fixing a Propeller
I have owned many boats in my life and everyone of them had a different propeller. What I have learned is that having the proper well maintained propeller on your boat is very important. There are as many propellers on the market as there are boat engines, so choosing the right prop can become overwhelming to the average boater. I recently purchased a ‘new to me’ boat and it came with a 17 pitch(p) stainless steel prop that had quite a few dings in the leading edge of the three blades. It wasn’t bad enough to prevent me from using it, but I knew that it would have to be fixed. Another issue I had with this prop was that it didn’t seem to allow my boat’s motor to spin up to 3400 rpm without the motor feeling overloaded and the hole shot seemed sluggish. So, I took my prop into Victoria Propeller in Nanaimo and asked them to fix it. They put my prop up on a jig and measured the angle of each blade starting from the mid point to the leading edge. It turned out that my prop was actually a 19p that a shop had tried to turn down to a 17p but they did a losey job and many places on the prop varied from 20p to 17p. Not only that but the dings on the leading edge of the prop was causing cavitation and put it out of balance. The mechanic went to work and pounded the living crap out of each blade to get it to the 17 pitch that I wanted, he also welded more material to the leading edge then grinded that down to fix all the dings. He grinded and sanded each blade which took a lot of work and remeasured the angles until the prop was a uniform 17p from mid point to leading edge. When he was done he buffed the blades until the prop looked 100% brand new. This stainless steel prop is 15years old, and it looks as good as the day it was made.If you think that your boat is sluggish out of the hole, or if you can’t get the rpm’s up to 4000 rpm (on an inboard) or if your rpm’s are too easily red-lining then you probably want to go and see a propellor shop to figure out the best propeller for you boat. Propellers can be easily repitched up to 2 inches, and the dings and grooves that your prop gets can be fixed by the local propeller shop. If you choose to run the boat with a damaged prop, you can damage the internals of the leg, you will burn more gas, it’s harder on the engine, the top end and hole shots will be affected and you put your safety on the line.
I would recommend using a prop shop like Victoria Propeller in Nanaimo (250-753-9700) or Cobble Hill (250-743-8151), as they really did a great job for me.
Tight lines,
Ian B.
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