Knowing More About 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 need to know that there is no boat propeller that is always right. You need to change your boat propeller if you want to change your boat or your boat engine. The performance of your boat will not only be affected with the wrong boat propeller, but your engine will also be damaged fast.
If you invested on a boat and boat engine as a package then the dealer will be matching it with the boat propeller for the pre-delivery rigging process. But you need to make sure that you will be asking the dealer about this. But there will be changes once you own the boat. The dealer will provide you with a boat propeller depending on the average load of the boat. But this important factor in choosing a boat propeller might be affected if you will add heavy items.
The boats that can withstand heavy loads are the pontoon boats and outboard-powered houseboats. 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. As a matter of fact, you will need to re-prop for these changes.
The reason why you should have engine rigging is to make sure that the boat engine will reach a specific rpm at full throttle. The tolerance of the top speed of the boat engine will fall under the range of 800 – 1000 rpm.
There are some other boat propeller terms that you need to take note of in order to understand more about this topic.
Pitch – this refers to the theoretical distance that is covered by the boat propeller in one whole revolution.
Diamater – this term refers to the straight line distance of the center point of the boat propeller to the edge of the 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 engineers to increase the pitch of the boat propeller blades in order for it to have better grip on the water.
Slip – related to the pitch of the boat propeller blades. The distance of that will be covered by the boat propeller on the water in one revolution will be affected because the boat propeller will lose distance because of slippage on the water. A standard boat propeller will usually have 10 – 30 percent slip based on its use and design. You can visit this link to know more about boat propellers.