This hurts my wallet

[Steve Gaylord]

Hi guys,



Last weekend had a bit of an accident. I have no idea how it happened but while my wife was driving my boat well away from anything in site, in the middle of the St. Johns river we started feeling a horible vibration. I imediately shut down the engin and when I tilted it found that one of the blades was missing from my prop!



This is what most people call a shift prop. It give you an 11 degree pitch to get out of the hole and then shifts to a 26 degree once the engine gets to a certain rpm.



My question is, is this prop fixable? My dealer told me when I bought the boat that it costs about $1500.00. As you can see I dont want to replace it if I can have it fixed. Also I cant find who even sells them to see what a new one costs. Its made by Aerostar and the name of it is Switch Blade.



Can anyone help with and information on this prop?



Thanks,



Steve

 

[Rob LaMoy]

Sorry to hear about that Steve. Man I've never even seen a prop like that before. Way cool. Mine is getting recupped and pitched today. That's $200, so I hate to see the bill on yours. I can only imagine that the base of the prop blade must have been weak. Good luck man.

Rob

 

[Mebassn]

Steve, you might want to look at taking it to the prop shop in Mandrine, i think it's Jax propeller, Since you have what appears to be the hub from the broken blade they might be able to manufacture a whole new blade or weld on and match one or the other blades. I had a 26p LaserII repaired a few years back due to hitting a rock in reverse and it cost $125 just for a ball park amount. I also think one of the marinas at the mouth of the Ortega river might have a prop repair shop.



Eric H.

 

[Staci Matheis]

Steve -



I've seen many discussions on the Switch Blade type props......... The general consensus is that they are a novel idea that simply doesn't work. Buy yourself a standard stainless prop.



me!



P.S. Before you post a picture, go into your photo editing program and resize it to about 500 pixels wide. That way it can be viewed all at once and will download quickly!

 

[Rich Stern]

Steve, you may be able to get a replacement blade (since it is a moving part) from the original prop manufacturer.



By the way, how does your boat perform with that prop? Seems like an ideal solution for the early model 911's.

 

[Steve Gaylord]

Rich,



I love this prop. Even with a heavy boat it only takes about 2 seconds to get out of the hole and on plane. It makes a shifting (clunk!) noise that takes some getting use to. I really like it.



If I cant find someone to fix this prop. I might go with the shifting prop Land and Sea makes. Is is supposed to make a smooth shift without the clunk.



I have my spare prop on my boat now its a 25 pitch Tempest Plus. Well see how it performs, I have never had it on the boat. I might be spoiled with the Switch Blade.

 

[Julio Santana]

I've never seen a bass boat application of a variable pitch prop. They are very seldom used on even large pleasure craft (over 80ft) and only sometimes on commercial vessels whose cargo varies in weight (offset for position in water).

I would say for a vessel under 50 feet it's unlikely you'd get any real benefit running this type of prop over a conventional fixed pitch prop plus it'll save you a bunch of money.

One question, you should have a control for the switching of pitch on the blades somewhere right?

 

[Steve Gaylord]

Julio,



The only adjustments you can make is what rpm the shift will take place in.



I have only used this prop on my boat since I bought it. I will see when I take it out next what a difference it makes.



Steve