Switching to Mercury 4 stroke

[Hula_Grub]

The reason I went with piranha is because of the bad experience I had when I first got my boat. I bent my prop shaft and tore a blade straight off the 4th time I had the boat in the water. I should have been more aware of my position, but that's another story. If I wasn't scared of doing that again I would have gotten an aluminium prop right away again.

According to piranha their propeller prevents that from happening. If you hit something as hard as I did you just break a blade, and blades are only $15 each or so. Plus you can swap out blades so if you need high pitch one day and low the next, you get the 2nd prop for $45. Initial cost is about $100 for the first prop.

Your advice is a little late for me, unfortunately, Marine Man. This is our 1st boat, won't be our last, and we learned a lot of lessons by having so many compromises. BWCA useage vs. pedestal seats, vs. livewell, vs. 2 or 4 stroke, blah blah blah.

I'm sure this boat wasn't tested with this prop. Given that I was back at the dealer within weeks of buying it I was able to tell them all about what I thought of their prop choice.

The motor is fine, the boat is fine, but the two don't really belong together. I think purplehaze will have a very different experience if his boat is a few hundred pounds lighter than mine.

Also, fwiw, I'm an airline pilot who few turboprop airplanes for a long time- I know how propellers and motors work and how rpms and HP come together to make thrust.

[steffanf]

Most of the time smaller hp motors (under 40 or so) come from the manufacturer with a prop on it already. If a dealer doesn't water test the boat, or verify the prop pitch it's no wonder you ended up in the situation you found yourself in.

marine_man

That's just it. Why would the dealer have to water-test the boat? Shouldn't the manufacturer know what prop size & pitch to use for certain motors on their boats to get the best performance? What makes this even more obvious is that Lund and Mercury are owned by the same company. Either way, I know for a fact that the dealer I bought the boat & motor from didn't really have a clue as to what prop size I should have on the boat. Would the guy at Soderblooms know this right off the bat?