Jeff told me the same thing keep the full dia 17 and start 18 rake , I will be ordering soon .

the difference I see is you are so high on x- only 1/3 of the blade is in the water and just your fin will be blowing a hole.

Thats the way I see it .

Cat how high up are you now?

I've got a set of 5bl 17" 38P X 18* Herings coming from Bblades for testing. If they don't work I should be able to decide a prop from knowledge gained. I'll find out April 7 weekend, if it's not snowing again.

I will be almost 3 inches above the bottom . My X dimension is 22. 3/4 with 18 inch propshaft centers

Hope it works out. FWIW. I am running 30* rake and 11% slip. I know it is not the same thing, but i thought I should share because my drives are within an inch of your x , but I'm not staggard.

Bunny wabbit ear vs cleaver is the difference in rake requirements.
Supposedly the #6 boats like 16*. Likely reason is the smaller bullet and built in ext box

Wonder where he came up with that?

Glad you are doing all this research. If I win the lottery, I'm getting -4's