bbladesprops

Wow, I must of hit a nerve.

Your telling me? Like I said, I was at Merc Racing at the time. I think you guys were just getting on board in the marine industry with Hydromotive then. I was involved with Bob Hetzel and Dennis Cavanaugh in supplying the APBA the proper tools and numbers for the measurements.

Todd had some thinner props we made and had done well with them. The APBA decided it was time to enforce some standards on propeller thickness. That is why I recall Todd having his own measuring stuff. Believe me, it was a real pain when we first started donig that SC thicness curve and then the Bravo drive stuff. It was a pain again last year when the OSS guys decided to enforce it mid season on the Bravo drives. I had calls back and forth with all the OSS tech officials. It made some of the guys running our Bravo and Max and Hydro props pissed. Typical offshore racing though. You have to stay on top of the rule changes. They are going to occur start middle and end of the season (or at least get enforced). I've watched and been involved for many years.

Anyway, we have digressed from the subject.

The question was, are the Herings worth the money? The best advice any professional propeller person can give you is to try as many different propellers as you can. Just because something is more expensive or marketed heavily, it doesn't guarantee the best performance on your rig. We have had props that were so far out of wack that they couldn't be duplicated, and they were the fastest propeller on a guys boat. One particullar instance with Bill Seebold (winningest boat racer of all time) comes to mind.

The fastest prop on the boat is the fastest prop on the boat. Likewise mid range and acceleration. If money is no object, try them all. If quality and value are important, do you homework and test, test, test.

Every propeller manufacturer out there has quality products!

Some of the best advice I ever got from Dennis C. was..... Be careful when you start to claim yourself as the best. That's a lot to live up to.

throttleup

Sounds like good advice.

KenD

That's right....2-3 hours on several sets of Bravo I's.

These where bone stock props that we tried to use for our "standard" for testing different setups. Never used these props for anything but a base-line run whenever we made a change in the boat setup. Problem was...we couldn't keep the Bravo's on long enough to keep a consistant standard. Every 2-3 hours...bang...there went another blade or we would find a crack. If we did race a set Bravos, they had to be new, and would last the race, but would usually come back with a crack in one of the blades

Yes, I did talk to Mercury...and Dennis C...several times...no help from them. They where having issues with the Spiderman boat and suggested we go to the #6 drive. That wasn't a option for us. Todd had been throwing blades on Bravo props left and right and needed a new set for every race...he got another boat with #6 drives....that solved his problem.

We had better luck with Herings, but they are hard ot get and we couldn't replace them when they would throw a blade.

When the Maximus prop came out, we where the first team to try them. The Maximus had just been released and X-Site didn't even have them...they had to have a few sets sent in overnight for us to test. Maximus did work...at least they didn't crack or throw blades. But they where SLOW and the quality was awful. We would check each prop and find that nine times out of ten at least two blades on each prop would be different lengths. Stock or lab fininsh, it didn't make any difference...we tried everything we could get our hands on.

We approched our prop program with an open mind...looking for the best combination avaliable...regardless of what everyone else was using. We didn't have any pre-conceved opinions...we just wanted the best setup we could put together.

We ended up running the Maximus props (Lab finished by Throttle-Up) until we tried the Throttle-Up CNC prop. They say there's no 10 mph prop.....well how about a 6 mph prop. That's what we got...right out of the box. Another thing I like about the Throttle-Up prop is that with the CNC process, we can try very minute changes from prop to prop to really dial-in our setup.

So far they have been just like a Timex...take a licking and keep on ticking.

Is there a better prop out there?

Probably...but it hasn't come out of Matt's head and into the CNC machine.....yet.

dbhammer

wow, 6pmh?? thats big. how many blades on that CNC'd prop that you got that on?

KenD

That's on a 6-blade....cut was designed to give a lot of stern lift and improved acceleration.

Matt put a lot of thought and planning into the design for our particular circumstances.

Thanks to the CNC process, its' one of Throttle-Up's stock cuts now...for boats that need stern lift.

It works!


PS:

That was back to back tests between our best Maximus prop and the Throttle-UP prop.....no boat setup changes...test runs 20 minutes apart on the same water. Results...6mph top end increase...2 second better acceleration (60-90).

johnnyoffshore

Wow, sounds like a sweet CNC 6 Blade there! My hull could use more stern lift. I have a very high X and could use more bite on the water as well. I have run Chopper, Mach Twister, and Labbed Bravo. Bravo seemed to work the best. I am planning on running Throttle Ups CNC prop soon as new motor is done. The 6 blades would help with stern lift for sure and I believe they would help me bite better when trimmed out. Sounds like Throttle Up has awesome customer services and even a better product. Those are the 2 most important keys for me

Johnny

Donzi35ZR

Julie,
Just received the props yesterday and they look awesome. Now, just waiting for a nice weekend to test them (hopefully this weeked). Will keep you posted.
Thanks for a terrific service.

throttleup

You are quite welcome !

Safe Testing!

Julie