Kiwi Prop experiences

[belizesailor]

Re dings. Mine have held up well. I finally chipped one last season, but that was from a strong impact.

Kiwi Prop service would be hard to beat, but better performance under power would be a bonus.

[daletournier]

The aggressive pitch in reverse can be a problem for smaller diesels. I purchased mine in 2010, I cant speak of about later editions.

Its important to keep the blades greased, it can be done in the water if you have a hookah.

The reverse issue did cause me some anxiety at times coming into marinas (on my last boat), I also had to change blades due to some bad dings, lots of stuff in Asian waters, small stuff can be filled out.

I still believe they are good value for money and as Jon said , the company was very responsive to communication.

[NorthernMac]

I too like the idea of a variable pitch prop that feathers, is a Gori prop any better?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

As Kenbo noticed in his excellent post, motoring performance is not as good with ANY feathering prop. Feathering props tend to have flat blades, so only one part is really giving optimal thrust.

That’s not actually true, the Autoprop is a feathering prop, and is as effective if not more so under power than a good fixed prop.
It also can have less drag depending on shaft angle as it’s blades feather in the water flow, where most feathering props go parallel to the shaft in feather.
Also the Autoprop gives arguably the best thrust in reverse as the blades flip over 180 degrees and the leading edge still is the leading edge. In fact I believe it’s design dates back to WWII as the prop that can give the max thrust in reverse for getting a landing craft off of the beach.
However many if not most boats reverse thrust is limited compared to forward due to the transmission reduction ratio. If it were not for the difference in gear ratio, the Autoprops thrust in fwd and reverse would be identical.

[DiStefano]

I realize it's a few years after the original inquiry, but I want to share my experience w/Kiwi propellers, for the possible benefit of future readers. I "inherited" my props (attached to SD25 sail drives, powered by the Yanmar engines on the 2009 Leopard 40) from the previous owner, so I didn't know their exact history. Once I started sailing/motoring, I quickly realized that I have issues with engaging the reverse gears. After a lot of debugging, change of control wires, sail drive shoe, etc. my attention has focused on the Kiwi props as the potential culprit. An underwater observation has confirmed that the props don't properly engage in reverse. Once the yacht was out of the water, the lengthy and complicated process of fixing the issues had begun. In short, this was a support process from hell. The only person who was responding to my inquiries was John from NZ (I believe he's the inventor and the company founder). The time difference between NZ and USA has slowed this process down and was further aggravated by an almost absolute lack of support in NA (the person in CA is simply non-responsive, and the two Canadian locations seem to be working part-time at best). Kiwi website - while choke-full of information (as well as grammatical errors) - is incomprehensible to an average person. Access to replacement parts is limited and very costly - essentially expect to pay $75 for each shipment from NZ, and plan that you may need several separate shipments, as you "discover" what exactly is wrong with your unit. The company claims that propeller failures due to line entanglements are very rare, but the circumstantial, as well as common-sense, evidence points to the contrary. In summary: unless you are ready to disassemble these props every time they get entangled or otherwise blocked, there are other alternatives.

[wynmead]

3YM30 and SD20. Converted to Kiwiprop 15 or so years ago from a solid lump pf prop. 11m Eagle 365 (same hull as Elliot 1050) Hugely lighter prop so a lot less stress when changing gear. Really pleased with it. Was racing in cruising division. Certainly noticed the difference. Goes well in reverse as well.
Needs to be serviced but that's easy.