"Vincent, if you are looking f
"Vincent, if you are looking for a great hole shot, quicker to plane and hold plane at lower speed you may want to consider a 4 blade prop.
It will do all that for you. The flip side is however, you shave 2 or 3 mph off your top end.
A 4 blade will also take an extra 100 rpms or so off your WOT compared to a 3 blade.
On your rig you could still easily run a 4 blade 19 pitch with good results. Alternately, you could run an 18 pitch but that may be difficult to find - most props tend to come in odd numbered pitch sizes.
There is a couple of "variable" pitch props out there. The idea is not new and some are good, others are outright bad designs.
Last year I acquired a 4 blade variable. The brand is ProPulse (a scandinavian company makes it - WestMarine sells it). It's a replacable blade type composite design so if you happen to hit some rocks you can replace a single blade quite easily. On my particular model you can vary the pitch between 15-19 simply by fiddling around with it. So far I have been fairly impressed with how it has worked.
The one nice thing about the variable is, as the summer progresses motors tend to work harder and lose rpms as the air gets more dense/humid. You can lower your pitch by 1 or 2 and get the motor running at peak again. This system saves having a "second prop" of a different pitch for that purpose. Additionally, if you have that time where you have a boatload of guests, you can lower the pitch and save some gas...
Piranha propellers are similar to the one I'm running and you could check out their website (
www.piranha.com) if interested."