Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I am running a SunTracker 16 Bass Buggy with a 30HP Mercury 4 stroke. Current prop is the factory prop and its a 9" pitch. By myself I hitting 6450RPMs and after a few seconds of that the engine alarm sounds. According to the Mercury manual 6250 RPMs is the top. My question is, what prop do I need to go to? I usually have someone with me 50% of the time, but I am still at 6150-6200 with them in it. I am happy with acceleration, and its turning abilities, but I would like to run my motor WOT. Should I go to a 10" or??

Unless you travel heavy often, you might want to go one notch up in pitch. You might have to order such a prop as such low pitch props are not that easy to find--often requiring special ordering. Thankfully aluminum props are inexpensive. And if they don't work out as your main prop, they can be kept as a spare.

In my opinion with a motor of that size an aluminum prop would be best since performance with that motor is not what you are after. a good prop guy can turn an inch or two of pitch in an aluminum prop. But a new one isn't that much I bought an aluminum prop for my 135 to get to the right place. and it was only $150 bucks, shipped. a 30 hp should be that bad.

You need a 11 pitch to drop it down under the rpm limit

11 will drop the RPM too much, 10 might work OR if you have a 3 blade see if a 4 blade 9 pitch is available.