Prop Speed

Has anyone tried out the anti fouling system for the running gear called Prop Speed? A two part paint on process.

A voice out of the distant past... I had thought Paul was rocking on the porch of the old age home so I cut all ties to the Chesapeake.

Good to hear from you. Sorry I don't know anyone who uses Prop Speed.

Tom,

I live, just forgot my password

Paul

I don't have any firsthand experience with Prop Speed either but second the welcome back to Paul from a Lambertville expat.

Well, I hesitate to say this, I typically won't get caught up in the bottom paint debates, along with varnishes and anchors. However, I hauled a boat last year that had Propspeed on it, and the jist is, we were amazed. Poor boat had a million blisters on it, as the owner had bought it freshwater, slapped a little ablative on it and sailed. Knowing this bottom would need surgery, and it did, whoo boy, but the guy had put the propspeed on it because 'it was there'. It was the only thing under that boat left intact. Thruhulls beat out, transducers leaking, head stopped up, but the prop...wow. I should have taken a picture of it, and I might have amongst the thousand I take a year. But that silly prop looked like the day they dropped it in the water, you could literally wipe it off with a Kleenex.
I don't know, we'll launch over fifty boats a year, and if the owner doesn't specify, we'll 'experiment', figuring the boat will be back next year. (We have a huge repeat business of happy owners). We have put on most known substances, including the hards and ablatives that we know full well won't last a month. None of it does. One guy even tried surfboard wax. Go ahead, guess how long that lasted.
A lot of our clientele is very large boats. It's not uncommon to seat a 48" wheel here. As a rule we buff them to a mirror shine with high speed Scotchbright pads. And that is all. The tug operators laugh at coatings, because those old pros know that nothing is gonna stay on there that long. Out of all of that though, despite every known prop 'cure' that is available, I would have to vote the Propspeed though. It is the only thing that I have ever seen that will come out of the water intact.
Properly applied of course..

I have to agree with clp. Prop Speed showed up around here [Chesapeake Bay] about 5 or 6 years ago. I have tried everything out there and nothing has ever worked. A local marina brought it on and started to promote it. Its cost was $250.00 for the product and another $100.00 to apply. I thought it a scam and an expensive one at that. Time marches on and guys who had tried it started having great things to say about it. It seems it actually works. They had also found that you could easily apply it yourself, you just needed to follow the instructions which are not complicated. It also turns out that the amount of product you get is enough to do three sail boat props.

I was working on my prop this pass weekend and noticed the guy next to me getting ready to reapply Prop Speed to his prop, so we started talking and he sang its praises, said it was the 5th year he had used it and is the only thing that ever worked. His only negative comment was that he could not seem to get 2 seasons out of an application. About 20 minutes later a guy who is a couple of slips up from mine and wintering at the same yard as I, saw me hard at work with the drill and wire brush on my prop and said he was doing the same in preparation to apply Prop Speed, said it was his third year and it worked. He also had more then enough and said I was welcomed to what he didn't use. So I helped him do his prop and then we did mine. Both of our props are 3 blade feathering props so there is a lot of area and after doing both of the props there was in fact enough to do a third, which went to waste. We also did the shaft on my boat. Put the zinks on first and apply around them. I owe him at least a case of a good craft beer, not Budweiser!

So we'll see what happens, but I have a good feeling. I also started looking around the yard and now that I know what I'm looking at, can see there are more guys using it then I thought.

BTW, I have no commercial interest in Prop Speed.

Just a few barnacles on the prop cuts my rpm by 20%+.

Yard recommended Prop Speed so I had them put it on last spring (2013).
Wintered in the water so I don't know how it has held up.
But rpm looks pretty good - 1900 bollard pull in fwd - which is just a little lower than right after launch last year.

As soon as the water is a bit warmer, I'll get under the boat and take a look.