Has any body used one of these on their BCC?
Ahoy Gary , I think your forum post dropped your link site to that Kiwiprop ?
First thing that comes to mind is, a solo sailor in the Victoria to Maui race, was complaining about a SS corrosion problem between his newly installed Carbon Fiber Boom . Seems that the SS bow shackles that attached his main sheet to boom blocks, were failing way too often, he attributed it to the carbon fiber to SS mix !
Doesn’t make sense to me , but that is what he was convinced of .
When , I do my anti-foul haul outs , I spend a good deal of time scraping barnicles and some sort of calicum deposits off my bronze prop , then wire brushing , then using those 3 M grey abrasive discs to get rid of the scratches from the scraper . Both Bil of BCC Zygote and I rub grease on the prop blades to reduce bio fouling when laying-up our boats, but that doesn’t stop all growth, only makes easier to remove it .
I don’t have much experience with carbon fiber composits, only my kayak paddle has carbon fiber, so I don’t really know first hand about a potential corrosion problem.
One of the atributes of bronze , is that it maluable (sp-?) it can be re-straightened , and I know that a resin composit, as a plastic over time, gets hard , cracks and breaks . I would suspect that if a bronze prop hits something in the water it would bend the tips not break off the blades at the root .
This kind of damage is not easily remedied while underway, as I would rather have some prop left to “limp home” with , than have no blades left .
I did notice that zincs are still used on these Kiwiprops, probably to protect the SS trunion from corrosion.
F W I W , thats my 2 cents worth !
1 Like
Hello Gary,
Mandy has a kiwi prop and we are happy with it so far. I like the mechanical simplicity of it (a simple set screw for pitch adjustments), and the ability of each blade to feather independently of each other to reduce drag, a big plus in light winds. While on the hard in VA, we talked with several other people that had installed them and they all seemed pleased with the results. One thing to note is that from time to time greasing of the posts that the blades slide onto is required… you place a zirch fitting on and pump away with a grease gun.
Regards,
Bob
BCC #32 Mandy