William Butler

I finally ordered the correct size propeller today. It was a really difficult process. I called three different propeller shops and each of them were terrible with follow up. After I managed to get each on the phone, the conversations were short and one sided. I provided complete information about the boat, engine, transmission even provided information from other owners with similar setups. All they wanted to know were the rpm’s at wot. Yeah, I understand that this is one of the metrics, but it’s not the only metric. I had a full chart of rpm’s, speed, engine load and percentage throttle up to 85% throttle. I was hesitant to go wot because my current propeller is a little unbalanced. I finally talked to Rod Fortier who is the designer for my boat and he gave me a prop rec (which closely matched what I was hoping others would conclude after looking at my numbers. Only problem was that a 17x23 prop is just outside the typical max of 17x21. I called ACME Props. Braden answered the phone, listened and discovered he had a 17x22 with high cup that would perform pretty much like a 17x23 with light or no cup. Since it was a blemish, it was sitting on a shelf 40% off. Ordered it today. I highly recommend ACME. They even had a prop puller so I added that on to the price and I should have it in the next few days. Effectively 4” more pitch is going to bump my 70% cruise from 14.5 kts to 17 kts. Burning 5 gallons per hour this means I’ll be getting about 4 miles to the gallon. Crazy good for a power boat.