What Are Boat Propellers?
It is important for you to have the right boat propeller in order for your boat to have a long engine life and great overall performance. But you should know that there is no right boat propeller always. You need to change your boat propeller if you want to change your boat or your boat engine. If you will use the wrong boat propeller, the performance of your boat will be affected, and the engine of the boat will be damaged fast.
Every time you will be buying a boat and boat engine as a package, you will also receive the boat propeller as part of the pre-delivery rigging process. But you should verify this with the boat dealer. But there might be some changes if you own the boat. The boat dealer will select the boat propeller depending on the boat’s average load. But every time you will add heavy items, this aspect of choosing a boat propeller will be affected.
The pontoon boats and outboard-powered houseboats are some of the boats that can accumulate heavy loads. You need to know that the operating range of your boat engine will be affected by some changes in the altitude. If your boat is made for sea level operations, then you need to look for the right boat propeller if you will be using it on high-altitude lakes so that the engine can run within its normal range. You will need to re-prop in order to have these changes.
The goal of changing some parts of the engine is to make sure that the engine will reach a certain rpm. The top speed of the engine will range with an 800 to 1000 rpm.
You also need to be aware of other terms in regards to boat propellers so that you will understand the topic clearly.
Pitch – this is the theoretical distance that the boat propeller will move forward or backward in a whole revolution.
Diameter – refers to the straight line distance from the center of the hub to the tip of the boat propeller blades multiplied to two.
Cupping – this is the term that refers to the curl at the trailing edge of the blade of the boat propeller. This is used by experts to increase the pitch of the boat propeller blade so that it can have a better grip on the water.
Slip – related to the pitch of the boat propeller blades. The distance that the boat propeller will be covering in one revolution will be affected because of the slippage on the water which is the cause of the boat propeller to lose distance. Based on the use and design of the boat propeller, it will typically have 10 to 30 percent slippage. You can visit this link to know more about boat propellers.