Greg Cousins, an avid sport fisherman and owner of Bimini Tackle in Pompano Beach, Fla., is always looking to go a little bit faster.
That’s why he’s testing new technology in propeller repair.
The captain of a 47-foot Buddy Davis boat, he’s trying out Precision Prop Technology in Ft. Lauderdale, a computerized propeller repair and tuning shop that opened this year.
For $800, he’s having his propellers modified to cut through water more efficiently.
“I want my boat to go as fast as possible,” he said. “The less time running, the more time fishing.”
Precision Prop, owned by a husband-and-wife team, is one of five shops in the U.S. using new computerized technology known as the Prop Scan.
Developed by Australian Terry Ryan, it’s an optical measuring device that records inconsistencies along the surface of a propeller blade.
“Everybody realizes that performance and fuel efficiency start with propellers,” said Frank Herhold, executive director of the Marine Industries Association of South Florida.
“It’s good to see new technology being applied to such an important component of boat operations. Everybody’s talking about it.”
The Prop Scan, used by the U.S., Canadian and Australian Navies, is billed as a precise way to measure pitch, defined as the distance covered in one rotation of a propeller.
Adjusting pitch can produce such benefits as better fuel economy, increased speed and no vibration.
Traditional methods of measuring pitch are inaccurate and time-consuming by comparison, said Laurey Tomlinson, who founded Precision Prop with her husband, Mark.
“We’ve been in the stone age for so long with boat propellers,” she said.
Black Dog Props in Solomons Island, Md., was the first propeller repair shop in the country to use the technology.
The owner, Larry Carlson, discovered it two years ago when he went looking for a better way to serve his boat yard customers.
“I could not get quality propellers for either my customers or myself,” he said.
“I found out that in the U.S., there are no standards for propellers, which means Joe’s prop shop can build them to Joe’s standards, and Fred’s prop shop can build them to Fred’s standards.”
Word spread. Now, boat owners from as far away as California and Costa Rica send their propellers to Carlson for repair.
“The demand is just overwhelming,” he said. He has sold his boat yard to concentrate on propeller repair.
“With this equipment, we’re able to do what other people can’t,” he said.
Before buying the Prop Scan, Mark and Laurey Tomlinson, both 31, lived in Annapolis, Md.
He was vice president of a company that owned and managed marinas, and she ran an accounting firm serving the marine industry.
They had been looking to start a business together for several years and had considered a half-dozen options, from operating their own marina to owning a restaurant.
Then they read about the Prop Scan in a trade magazine.
“It just made so much sense,” Laurey Tomlinson said.
They paid $60,000 for the technology, including the software, machinery and a monthlong training session in Queensland, Australia.
They set up shop in South Florida because of its year-round boating and large concentration of boaters.
There are about 90,000 registered boats in Dade and Broward Counties and just six propeller repair shops.
The Tomlinsons plan was to target performance boaters who are willing to pay extra for the technology.
“It’s a small market, but it will give us more than enough business,” Mark Tomlinson said.
Price varies according to the size, make and condition of a propeller.
The cost to repair, for instance, a 20-inch bronze propeller with light damage is $132.
“It’s very precise, accurate work,” Mark Tomlinson said.
“We’re not going to be cranking out 100 propellers a week here.”
Frank and Jimmie’s Propeller Shop in Ft. Lauderdale repairs about 50 propellers a day using a pitchometer, one of two traditional methods.
Co-owner Jim Harrison had considered buying the Prop Scan but instead, he’s designing a similar device in cooperation with Michigan Wheel Corp., a propeller manufacturer in Grand Rapids, Mich.
He acknowledged that the Prop Scan provides the most accurate measurement of a propeller’s pitch.
He said his device will be better, though, because it will measure not only pitch, but also other aspects of a propeller, such as blade pattern and tracking.
Still, Harrison said, the average boat owner could care less about perfect propellers.
“Only so many people are going to pay to have their propeller fixed,” he said. “The main thing is to have fun.
“So what if your r.p.m.’s are off a little bit?”
