3-4 Blades, Yesterday vs Today

[Texasmark]

Just stumbled across this today. https://www.boattest.com/view-news/3276_which-is-better-4-blades-or-3-blades

Interesting as recently posted on here, I purchased my first 4 blade (actually 2) prop after 50+ years of boating. Turning Point Hustler had an interesting write up and having run them before and liked their innovation in aluminum, thought I'd look into their 4 blade for my current boating desires....20-25 mph soft ride. Seems they are into the new generation and as I mentioned they attacked the age old problem of speed loss with the addition of the 4th blade. But in all fairness, the porting that comes standard on their props I have used, isn't necessarily needed and in my case I sealed them off as I don't want nor need them on this rig.

 

[jimmbo]

Boattest tends to praise any product that is advertised on its site. I have never seen a product reviewed by them that wasn’t/isn’t spectacular, so I take their reviews with a box of Salt

 

[82rude]

Read the article,i tend to agree.On my 16 foot ss160 I have a 2011 60hp Evinrude etec.My mich wheel prop is 17p 3 blade,my solas amita 17p 4 blade and an older omc sst 3 blade stainless rejigged to 16p.The diff between the 3 is maybe 1 to 1.5 mph gps at the exact same 6000 rpm.The solas will rev down to next to nothing at still keep me on plane so if in liersurly cruising i like that one.The solas 4 blade has been on 2 motors and 3 diff boats and has proven itself to me .Never had a turning point hustler but would love to try one just because.

 

[Texasmark]

Well designs have changed, as witnessed by the TP 4 blade. Have no idea as to the rest of the market, just TPs published reasoning for their current design and it does perform....more than I need.

 

[82rude]

Texasmark you just bought the tp correct?Hows it working out for you?I believe tp is the only brand ive never owned.I might have to fix that this year.You can never have too many props.I hear where jimmbo is coming from but that's pretty well all mags now.

 

[Texasmark]

Texasmark you just bought the tp correct?Hows it working out for you?I believe tp is the only brand ive never owned.I might have to fix that this year.You can never have too many props.I hear where jimmbo is coming from but that's pretty well all mags now.

"How is it working out for you? You asked.........

I bought this boat, detailed all over this site, and it had a 22P Ballistic. I ran a 24 Ballistic on my previous boat and had some experience with them (and liked them....moot point for this reply). First outing it appears that somebody at the dealer swapped props because no way would this run run on that much pitch.....didn't know at the time that the throttle linkage stop screw inside the engine had vibrated loose and was preventing the throttle from maxing out....found that and corrected it later.

In guessing where I need to go with this new boat, part of the confusion was that the original tach didn't work and I replaced it with a new one (same part number) checking it on muffs at lower RPMSs against a digital I had in the shop and trusted.

So in trying to get the recipe, not knowing what input was telling me the truth and all, I started with a 19 3 blade and dropped to a 17 3 blade, all the while determining how I wanted to run this rig with 20-25 mph "soft ride" cruising speed winning out which put me into their 4 blades. Couple of reasons for that was that I already had the TP hubs, purchased with the 3 blade props, and I liked the newly designed TP 4 blade.

Since I liked 3k RPMs for cruising at my desired speed window with this rig, (3k was just above the solid "2+2 kick in" of this engine which I had to stay above to get the engine performance I wanted )the 4 blade 19 was now giving me the magic numbers at WOT (I could finally believe my inputs) but was too much pitch for smooth 20-25 operation. So, the 19 is coming off and the 17 is going on. Engine has a rev limiter and I have tested it in the quest for knowledge about this rig, so I am not worried about getting too frisky with the throttle with the 17. So that's where I am.

Other thing is these props (less the hubs) are under a hundred bucks (TTL so to speak) and can be kept for spares so I haven't really lost anything and could be put on Craigs List, or ebay if I so desired......but that's not in the picture currently.