Folding Prop
It may just be a little semantics issue, but IF you want to align the shaft/prop the blades (when folded out) they should be horizontal so the bottom blade won't droop. In that same position (when folded in) they make a vertical plane so the word vertical fits there, but the alignment should be opposite or 90 degrees from what a fixed 2 blade would be. I know in the Martec instructions it says to line up the prop, and if you are racing looking for every .001 kt it's worth the trouble but for cruising I'm not going to bother. I just received mine last week and I'll paste in somthing I wrote to a fellow Martec cruiser. I received my Martec 2 blade folder last week so I did some crude "tank testing" in the bathtub. What I observed - for me at least - backs up my assertion that lining up the prop is more trouble than it's worth. I grabbed my 3 blade fixed by one blade and dragged it through the water. The 2 blades made a Big Wave and you could feel a Big Drag. I dragged the martec with the bottom blade drooping at about 3' per second or 2 miles an hour and feeling very little drag and only ripples the drooping blade rose up to about 45 degrees. I then dragged it as fast as I could - maybe 4 mph - and the blade rose up to about 30 degrees from horizontal. I tried to measure the force needed/weight of lifting the drooping blade with a cheap bathroom scale and could not get a reading, but I'm sure a good scale would register the couple pounds. You can lift it with your little finger. I think the forces needed to move a 6 ton boat are not going to notice it. Just a cruisers opinion. Stan c320 #656
