Factors to Consider When Purchasing Boat Propellers
To get the best performance of your boat, you will need to have the right prop. Regardless of whether you are cruising or skiing, you will need to have a propeller that matches your application thus maximizing the power of your Engine. Here are tips when you are buying props for sale where you have to keep in mind the design as it affects efficiency, power and speed.
A boat propeller will have a hub which will come surrounded with blades which are built in the same length and size while they are also twisted as a measure to ensure that they will be pushing water to the rears when they are turning. When water is pushed to the rears; your boat moves forward. The blades are designed to move in a clockwise direction, when looking from the rear side, although some boats will have a combination of two propellers, one rotating in the anti-clockwise direction, which will serve to stabilize the boat and also reduce steering effort.
Propellers are described in two numbers which represent the diameter of the propeller and its pitch. Diameter represents the distance between tips of the propellers and when a propeller has a large diameter it ensures that it can push a lot of water and thus creating more power. The diameter is predetermined, and thus your prop selection will rather be based on the pitch of the prop.
When selecting the boat propeller basing your selection on the prop pitch, ensure that you select a higher pitched prop as it helps your boat move faster. A low pitched propeller can create more power due to the higher engine RPMs, but your boat will move slower. When you are selecting the props, ensure that your choice will help keep your boat’s engine RPMs in the recommended range since cases of under-range will see your boat lug while going over-range will strain your engine.
Prop rake is another essential consideration when you are selecting boat propellers and it represents the angle between the blades and the hub. Since the rake angle determines how much bow the propeller lifts out of water, ensure that you make the right decision considering that too much rake will serve to reduce your boat’s overall performance.
Some boat props will have cups which are helpful in creating space between the blade sides and thus effectively reducing slippage and ventilation. When you select props with cups, they will help increase the size of the pitch and thus create more power while you can also select a prop with fewer blades as they are more efficient.
