high 5 mercury prop

I am by no means a prop expert, wating for the experts to jump in but I can give you some clues. The fewer the blades, the more efficient the prop. For best speed, generally a 3 blade prop is best, but you will loose some out of the hole and will not be as stable in turns. The 4 blade Trophy is a good compromise as it is great out of the hole, sticks good on turns and looses only about 1 or 2 mph on the top end. You can think of the High 5 as a truck running in the granny gear. It is made for heavy loads and pulling. I use one to pull skiers. You will loose maby up to 5 mph on the top end, but it will stick like glue in turns and pop your neck out of the hole. I think that you may want to go up one pitch if you pick the High 5 to make sure you dont make the rev buzzer sound. You can also plane the boat at a much slower speed with the high 5; I use it when on a new lake and I am sight seeing. The web site below is a primer on props put out by Mercury. Hope this helps some JW Thomas http://sites.mercurymarine.com/portal/p … ema=PORTAL

I have an 07 PIV with a 200 Optimax. Normal prop is a 25 Pitch Trophy. I use a 23 pitch High 5 when I want to pull skiers or go slow. With the High 5 I have to watch the limiter real close because I can hit it in a heart beat. With the Trophy, I can almost hit the limiter and I can go 70 mph if I dont eat breakfast and its a cool day. If I could afford it, I would probably go to a Trophy 26 pitch. As the big boys will tell you, you have to try different combinations to see what works best for you. I usually run my motor a tad lower than the others because I dont like the left-turning torque, costs me a couple of mph, but no fish can catch me anyway. jwt