[Anonymous]

I am considering fitting a Flexofold two blade folding propellor to my 31 Cruise, Volvo D1-20 with saildrive. Does anyone have any experience with this or other folding propellors?

[Anonymous]

We’ve got the same boat as you, and got the “performance” package from Bavaria that included a 3 blade folding Volvo prop. Absolutely love it…great bite in forward and reverse, virtually no propwalk, lots of power, folds immediately when under sail and the engine is put in reverse, and spins open right away. The only issue is that we really burn through zincs (the 3 semi-circle ones just forward of the prop) and other threads on this site will show that this is a general issue when you add these props. Seems like I’ll be needing to replace them every 6 months. I’d highly recommend this prop, although I’ve never had another one so don’t have anything to compare it to.

Another B31 owner in Eastern Canada was interested in more detailed RPM and speed data from my prop, and I collected some numbers for him that you may be interested in. The speeds are pretty exact GPS SOG measurements in virtually still water and 2900 is my maximum RPM with this prop on:

RPM SOG (Knots)
800 2.3
1000 2.8
1200 3.5
1400 4.1
1600 4.6
1800 5.2
2000 5.6
2200 6.0
2400 6.4
2600 6.6
2800 6.8
2900 7.0

Hope this is helpful.

Riyad
s/v Battuta
Vancouver, Canada

[Author]

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