is Your Prop Slowing You Down? 🐌 | (Max-prop) Boat Maintenance Ep 340
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- čas přidán 15. 08. 2024
- Yes, it's boat maintenance time again! Did you know that fixed props are wrong for sailboats? We have serviced our feathering Max-Prop many times, but this was the first occasion in 17 years that we had it professionally tuned. And you won't believe what we discovered!
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00:00 What's wrong with our Max-Prop
02:04 Understanding hydrodynamics
06:21 Solutions (Why Fixed Props are WRONG for sailboats!)
07:55 Gearing
08:57 Greasing
09:58 Setting the pitch
12:24 Aligning the blades
13:57 And then this happened...
🎞️ TOTAL REFIT SERIES: • TOTAL SAILBOAT REFIT: ...
HOW WE STARTED SAILING
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5 REASONS NOT TO BUY A SAILBOAT
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5 REASONS YOU SHOULD BUY A SAILBOAT
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HOW MUCH TO SAIL AROUND THE WORLD?
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ARE YOU TOO OLD TO SAIL?
• Are you too old to sai...
HOW TO BUY A SAILBOAT
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THE BEST SAILBOAT TO SAIL AROUND THE WORLD?
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🎣 Liz's Top 3 Fishing Tips
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This shows how important it is to have Liz doing quality assurance while holding a large heavy object.
Couldn't have put it better myself, Mark!
Well that explains things. My prop is backwards! Every time I get up out of the chair I end right back in it. Imagine that. 🙂 Thank you for the deep dive into the inner workings of your prop. Way cool. Be safe!
Hehe, so it's not just cruisers who have this problem, Ron. That makes me feel a little better 😃
Wow ! Fantastic episode. Thanx guys, we love you
Thanks, Danny 😃👍
Thank you for posting this.
Hi I think that you should have tried a couple settings to figure out what is the lowest pitch setting. It looks pretty aggressive still. Just ignore all those letters and just try putting it together on one end in the middle and at the other end . It should go from flattest to medium to high pitch. I think you are in the medium position at k. If you cannot figure it out try all the settings and measure the pitch if each setting. Best wishes. Cheers if you find the lowest pitch. You are overloading your engine and it may burn out. A 2 bladed folding prop is not too expensive and will increase your speed when cruising with sail.
Jamie, your monochrome pictures are absolutely brilliant. I always loved monochrome because it focused on the image rather than the colour. So much more impactful (if that is a word) than distracting colour.
Thanks, Paul. There's definitely a time and a place for black and white, normally when there are strong contrasts. Next episode you'll see some low-light colour street photography. I tried converting them to black and white and not all of them work. This set though very definitely worked in black and white. Thank you for the kind comment.
This is why I'm so happy I got the new Maxprop whisper when I repowered. Annual greasing is so simple underwater and when I first got in the water tuning the pitch to the new horsepower was simple. Remove a cover set screw and change the forward and reverse angle screws then replace the cover screw. I did it 20 times simply with mask and snorkel while running back and forth at different rpms until I got the best performance.
Overall I improved both sailing and powering speed by 15%. It's been three years of cruising since and I'm still more than happy with it.
Hey Bruce. I envy anyone with the more modern design! It looks and sounds so much more simple. We retro fitted two grease points so we can grease underwater but the idea of changing pitch underwater sounds like a dream. Hope your prop brings you many years of efficient motoring!
I have to admit I was lost halfway through your presentation -- but that is my deficiency entirely. But yes, I stayed glued. Listening to the soothing nature of your voices and your calm throughout. (I think this is called NMSR or something, images and sounds that are relaxing.) I'm glad you'll no longer be wobbling, will gain a half knot or a whole knot in speed. This is NOT sarcastic: thanks for sharing the, to me, incomprehensible!! 😀. Regards.
Hey Daniel. You're thinking of ASMR and there's some weird ASMR videos out there! The lack of wobble is a god-send but it is a complicated, incomprehensible subject and I barely understand the basics myself 😉
Live and learn. 👍
Sometimes just live 😉
Jamie great still shots.
Cheers, George!
brilliantly explained
😃👍
Jamie. Great video and stunning b&w photos.
If it's of any help, we own 435 No. 33 (also a ketch). She has a VolvoPenta D2-75 with 2.23:1 gearbox driving a MaxProp classic 3-blade classic propeller of 22 inch diameter, right-handed. It was
reconditioned by Darglow around the time the boat was re-powered (previous owner). It was set by the previous owner after some trials to X=K, Y=E 20° right handed. Plenty (actually a bit too much) thrust of low down the rpm range e.g. manoeuvres at idle speed, but very comfortable indeed at 6 or 7 knots crusing at around 1800 to 2k rpm. Can chat on the owners forum if you need any more info.
Hey Rog, thanks for getting in touch. It sounds like your setup is similar to our old Perkins setup, ie with the correct gearbox ratio! I'm curious to know why our boats were fitted with such large props though. Most boats our length appear to have 19" blades. I don't know if this is a compensation feature of feathering props with their flatter blades. For the moment at least we can't do anything more to improve the performance but the service alone has helped with some some improvement in the torque. I think this would make an interesting discussion on the forum so I'll post something later and would love your input. Hope you're keeping well.
The maintenance of the Max Prop makes me appreciate the simplicity of my Flex O Fold prop ! Until I start reversing the boat, then I wish for a Max Prop!
I believe the more modern MaxProps are easier to set and service.
watching your video, you set the X=A & Y=H, This is configured for a left hand rotation at 26 degrees. I did not see the reference mark for the X setting so I cannot verify it was correct. Having said - the setting for a Right hand rotation the settings should have been X=V & Y=B to get a 26 degree angle (19.3 pitch).
Hi, could you just change the gears in the gearbox? like your videos greetings from Austria
Very good question and I put that to Beta. However Beta is not the best company to deal with. I was told by one guy I could change the gears but he spent the rest of the summer avoiding my calls when I tried to pursue this option. I ended up speaking to one of the managers, who I've met in person, and he was his usual dismissive, rude self. Made me feel stupid for even suggesting changing the gears 🤷
The first time I got to see a max prop out of the water, I was mesmerised and intrigued on how it worked.
Now after this video I finally know how it works, still a few small questions but I guess I'll find those out later.
Great video guys.
You can guarantee those few questions you still have I won't know the answer to. They're complex bits of kit, to my eyes at least.
You ordered the Beta with the wrong gearbox ... how could you do that to that wonderful gem of an engine.? making it not able to unleash its full power potential.. the pain, the pain... 😉🙂 Anyways.. looking forward to your next video.. 👍
Indeed! And imagine our disappointment at realising we'd been running with this gearbox for all these years 🤦
I had a 2-blade Maxprop with the same choice of pitch selections, all of them could be selected. You mentioned, that your range is maxed out, but then you demonstrate, how you set the propeller to 16° blade angle. You still have 3 smaller angles that you can chose. What prevents you from selecting one of those? Your engine would probably show less coking when not running constantly in overdrive mode.
Hi Rusty. I'm guessing this is to do with the rotation speed. Any lower angle and the prop would become inefficient. I'm going to send this video to Darglow and point them to your question so they may answer with a bit more knowledge.
Hi again. This is from Darglow:
Your propeller is worn on the pitch stops which mean your 16degree setting actually measures a lot lower on the pitch meter @ 13.23 degrees (9.5” pitch). If we begin to reduce pitch further you won’t go anywhere 😊 and as you say begin to become really inefficient (especially in benign conditions!). Propellers have diameter to pitch ratios (windows) where they are most efficient. Begin to stray out of this window and you will find performance drops of in certain conditions.
What sprung to mind was "Too many cooks". One person, one job. In this case a Max Prob?
Yes, exactly that. I'm normally dealing with the prop on my own. In future, I will stick to this, Jonathan.
I ground an Inch & a half of a second hand prop once , Unusual shaft size , 2 inch on a 40 foot cat with a 40 HP motor ( Dont know how) any way from 1300 revs to 2400 worked a treat to my great surprize .
It sounds drastic doesn't it, Bill? But Darglow offered this service as a serious option with quite obvious benefits, as you've proved.
Hi, if the pitch is set for a lower speed and so the engine is overloaded and can't reach the max speed I would try to reduce the angle of 2 degrees, so 14 instead of current 16 reducing the pitch. Can't say if it's too much but it's worth trying.
that is interesting
Cheers, Jerome.
Great video. Have the same prop and emailed with the US to get an estimate of the setting's for our boat specs. Worked a treat.
FYI there are not many videos out there for this prop, get more views and add "max prop" to title. Goodluck
Hey Ralph. I think Liz took the words 'maxprop' out because it sounded too specific but you're right. We'll add it in so it may help others. I'm interested to know what settings and what set up you have on your MaxProp.
@followtheboat sailing and travel took my prop off when we first time hauled out. Yikes!
Emailed Fred in the states and he suggested 16°. I had been reading 14° on the net, so was pretty close.
Our boat, an Australian built Oceanic 46 mono sloop. 19.91T, engine Cummins B4 3.3L 65HP@ 2600. Gearbox 1.55:1 and Maxprop classic diameter 18.5'.
Went with the 14° to lessen the stress on the engine and have more torque rather than top end speed. Boat does 7kn at 1750rpm in the calm.
I installed our max prop classic last week, and when got onto the water, it was going the wromg way. Lifted the boat again, checked, and it was just a little bit out of alignment. Reassembled and it works ok. What I don;t understand, is how does a little misalignment change forward and reverse directions completely.
That will be OK, u have an understanding of what is going on. Most of the fixed pitch props, as i have experienced is overprint - to much pitch... Had constant pitch om the planes i was flying. Anybody seen this setup on boats?
I honestly don't know, Jan. My experience with props is literally this one and this one alone 🤷
Learn something new, it just goes to show how a little wear can amplify along the shaft and get you thinking terrible things, on the plus side you also made aware of the ratio error to prop size, I can only guess the vibration is made when each blade in turn meets turbulant water instead of clean water on part of it's revolution in so it's slapping a void of water ??? just my theory and could be completely wrong, it's not quite clear cut for me, it's not a Land Rover lol
Hi Brian. Your theory is a possibility. I think it's more likely that if the blades engage in a certain position, they're ok, but it's random as to when they engage in that position. 1mm off that position and they wobble. Dunno, I'm guessing as much as you are but really I think they wobbled whatever their position 🤷
@@followtheboat I would have to chat with those that do drag boat racing, I'm sure they would have got the science down to a fine art, it's out of my line of engineering and something I'm wrapping my head around as best I can with very limited knowledge on the subject, you would know way more than me novice grade and you at ( expert level ) :) look forward to the next video with correct rotation and if the vibrations have gone and if there's any improvment on boat speed ?
Why not change the gear box ratio to the correct one?
JIM ❤
I put this idea to Beta and they were not particularly helpful!
162nd subscriber LIKE; 827th desktop travel-mate view.
Ahoy, Peter!
What material is that shim (instant ~5') made of? any risk of galvanic corrosion?
I'm assuming 316 but honestly couldn't answer the question about corrosion. I've asked Darglow to scan the comments so they may be able to answer this.
Every man of a certain age will eventually have to deal with "tip wobble".
I guess I've reached that age, Rob 😂
I'm a little confused, you are talking about the diameter of the prop but showing the radius in the diagram. (at 2:35 in the video)
The diagram is showing half the diameter from two different angles.
A prop blade should have TWIST max props dont they just cavitate
Yes, and they will never be as efficient as a fixed prop... going forward at least.
"I could do it blindfolded". There's your problem, you did it without your blindfold.
Aha, I didn't think of that, William. Blindfolded or not, I'm clearly out of practice!