Prop Help

I've been boating my entire adult life.  I finally did the inevitable and wrecked a prop.  It was on the inaugural run of a boat I just purchased.  Dumb.  

Anyway.  I know nothing about props.  I don't understand 3 blade vs. 4 blade and pitch and so on and so forth.  I just want someone to tell me what to buy, and I will do so.  

2014 Mercury 150 hp four stroke.  I think I would like to go stainless and my priority would probably be hole shot/acceleration as this is on a Lund Tyee that gets used for casual fishing but also watersports.  So hole shot is far more important to me than top end.

Also, the damage to the aluminum prop is that I curled the tip on one of the blades.  No chunks or cracks.  Can that be repaired and kept as a spare?

Thanks for any help you can provide.  

Attached is a link to prop selector guide page at Mercury. I used it when I needed a spare prop. I wound up buying a 4blade in the Quicksilver brand. The origional 3blade prop is now my spare.

www.mercurymarine.com/en/us/propellers/selector/#!/step-one

Hope this helps.

Get aluminum prop fixed, and with a 150 horse , stainless would be your best choice , you would see a difference at speed with stainless versus aluminum.  Just need to be sure to keep your surroundings in mind . Stainless doesn't bent like aluminum and can break what its attached to before breaking itself 

To add to fishrepellant's excellent advice, yeah the four blade (or five blade, if you have a Merc) will give you way better hole shot and it will let you stay on plane longer when you slow down. But you pay with a couple mph of top end speed. 

It's absolutely critical that you do not exceed the max rpm rating for the engine at wide open throttle, and that can happen if you use too small a prop. You won't just suck more gas, you'll shorten the engine's life considerably. 

If you're not sure about it take the boat to your dealer. If you're going to buy a prop most will let you try out one or two different ones to help you decide, esp. if you're plunking down the big money for stainless.

Finally, yes your prop can be most likely be repaired. Keep it as a spare for emergencies.

You really want to look at the RPMs the motor is running to help decide which prop to have.  However, a couple of general rules are:

- Aluminum is more forgiving/will take the damage when you hit something instead of your the rest of your engine, etc.

-Stainless has better performance because of it's strength (less flex)

-When going from Aluminum to Stainless, go down at least 2 pitches (if you have a 21p Aluminum now, should start with a 19p stainless)

-3 blade is better high end vs 4 blade gives more low end power and stability to your boat (less tilt/trim adjustment needed)

If you go to a dealer, ask them if you can try out a prop.  My dealership let me buy one and keep exchanging it until I figure out what I wanted/needed.  I have a 2017 Crestliner 1850 Fishhawk WT with a 150 Merc Pro XS and 9.9 Pro Kicker.   I know have a 21p 3 blade aluminum for speed and ended up with a 15p, 4 blade stainless for when I'm on big water, skiing, etc.  The 15 is very low and I need to be careful no to over-rev the engine on calm water with little weight in the boat, but when I have all of my salmon gear and 4 people in the boat, it really powers through the waves nice.

Good Luck.

Can’t say as I know a ton about props myself but I do know 4 blades are better for hole shot. I garfed up the prop on my boat the first day I had it as well lol. I just bought the same prop on Amazon for $90. I’m pretty sure the advantage of stainless props is there is less flex in the blades but not sure if you would see a noticeable difference or not??  Not sure where u are but I could fix your prop for u If u can’t find anyone.  Fixed one for a guy at work earlier this year. His was really beat up, I welded all the gouges and ground it all back smooth. It looked brand new when I was done.