Last June, I took the opportunity to remove my old tired Martec prop and send it to the factory for a rebuild while my boat was on the hard for a new bottom paint,
Sounded like a great idea except that the post office lost the prop. Upon realizing that the prop was gone for good, I did much research and decided to buy a Flex-O-Fold 2 blades folder. I had to hurry and put my order in before July 5th because Flex - O - Fold was closing their doors for "Summer Holiday" between July 10th and August 15th. Can you believe it? Yep, close the whole thing down right smack in the middle of prime sailing season. That should have been a clue about their customer service or lack thereof. I got the prop direct from Denmark about a week after putting the order in and had my diver buddy do the install. The prop looked great but did not perform well at all. It was over pitched and vibrating really badly, worse than my old tired Martec, my engine was smoking, vibrating, and generally peeved from the lugging / overload. I just had to put-up with it until mid August when they came back from vacation. After that It was one arguing email after another on why I'm wrong, my engine is bad (It made 7.6 knots on flat water with the old 3 fixed bladed prop), and in their infinite wisdom they had "definitely" sent me the right prop / I was just not appreciating it. It finally ended with sending a picture of my chartplotter clearly displaying 7.6 knots SOG while motoring Then they said: Send the whole thing back to us. Truth to be told, all it probably needed was new blades with 1 inch less pitch. (They were 16 X 12) I was so fed-up with their crappy attitude, I spent the 200 bucks and sent the thing back. They "Checked" it (Nothing mechanically wrong, just wrong specs) and finally became decent / offered to send my money back. After the refund, I ordered a 2 blades 16" Max Prop Easy / received it last week / installed it yesterday. It works! My engine maxes-out at the Yanmar prescribed RPM, it's smoother than I expected, almost as smooth as the fixed 3 blades prop, and the reverse is phenomenal, just like everybody says. As a bonus, according to a German magazine test, it has less sailing drag than the Flex - O - Fold. 3 months later... It's done. Good thing we sail all year long here. I'd be pretty upset If I had to put the boat away for the winter in a week or two... -Francois Rivard 1990 34+ "Take Five" Lake Lanier, GA
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