Now I am glad I waited because it turns out the these props are a lot cheaper in New Zealand. The Max Prop for our boat was only going to cost about $2,000 US but having adjusted to New Zealand prices I decided to dig a little more and see what I could find. We decided on an Autostream prop which was just slightly more than $1,000 US in New Zealand. It is made in Australia and available in the US but again it is a lot more for the rich Americans.
Our boat performs so much better I am amazed and I had high expectations. You may notice the blue ink on the prop. It is a permanent marker that contains printers ink. It was given to us by Kim on Rival Chief. It has kept the growth off the prop for 6 weeks so far and got us out of New Zealand with non of the dreaded tube worms attached. |
We bought a new feathering prop in New
Zealand. I have kicked myself all the way across the Pacific for spending $3,000 US
on a genaker rather than on a Max-Prop before we left the US. We almost never use
the genaker but we would be using the feathering prop every time we were under sail.
It has pitch adjustment for both forward and reverse without disassembly
which was an option on the Max Prop for another grand. It seems to be well made and
it is the top selling feathering prop in Australia. The Max Prop is a beautiful
piece of engineering and I am sure that this prop doesn't quite measure up but it has
worked really well so far and we didn't need to modify the shaft so we can put the fixed
blade prop back on if we have a problem. I don't think we will. It seems to be
a quality product and with a very attractive price. If you want one in the US you
could probably save enough money to pay for a plane ticket by traveling to Australia and
picking it up.