Phantom Lake Prop Test

After a quick trip to a new propeller finishing company with a load of propellers that were nearly destroyed by the company I normally had do the work, I returned with a pair of "test" propellers. These props were thinned, rough finished and balanced. One was put on my boat.

So, where to test them?

Originally I thought to drive up to Idylwood Park in Redmond. There is a nice dock from which to launch, though it is a bit of a walk from the parking lot. I could listen to another segment of the latest book on CD that I had been following, too.

I let the day slip away, though, and ended up going to nearby Phantom Lake. The drive took only a couple of minutes and the walk to the dock was shorter.

The lake level was pretty low. The boat hit the muddy bottom as it was slid stern-first off the dock. I ended up gently dropping the bow over the side with a splash since there was not quite enough depth to get the boat to float otherwise. Oh, well!

I got in and pedaled slowly to the lilypad choked entrance to the lake, trying to not snag any vegetation in the propeller. With the skeg fin removed the prop was more likely to grab a stem or two and I didn't want my tests results clouded by the possible presence of bits of crud on the shaft.

Eventually I got out into the open water and began a warmup pedal.

It might have been psychological, but the new prop seemed to be faster. There did not seem to be as much resistance as I pedaled faster. The fact that I was wearing pants rolled up to the knees didn't help, however, and it was not long that I regretted not forgoing a water bottle, too.
After making a circle around the diminutive lake I made a couple of high speed run attempts.
The first was into the wind, and the gps reported a top speed over 9 mph.

The second was with the wind at my side. The gps reported a top speed of about 10 mph.

Hmm, I remember being able to reach over 10 mph with one of the original boats and propellers, though I was wearing clipless bicycling shoes and the matching pedals at the time. Perhaps I need to go back to wearing them if I really want to make an improvement in my race times!

I headed back to the dock, which was a little hard to find behind all the shoreline shrubbery.
After pulling the boat from the water I noticed that the hull was covered with slime from the lake. Yuck! That could be another reason the boat wasn't going faster - too much scum in the water!

We'll have to try this again under better conditions.