Your propeller is one of the most important parts on your boat, yet it is also one of the most vulnerable. A propeller guard could change that and save you from an expensive engine repair bill in the future—this article explains how.
Maintaining your boat’s propeller is an essential part of keeping your boat running safely and efficiently. When you are out on the water, if your prop is damaged, it’s something that you can sometimes feel in your boat’s performance and the smoothness of the ride.
Unfortunately, if you do not take steps to protect your propeller from underwater impacts, it is also extremely easy to sustain nicks and bent blades, and if you leave these defects as they are for too long, they could cause serious—meaning expensive—damage to your engine.
Here’s how that can happen and how you can avoid such a fate.
How a Bent or Dinged Prop Can Lead to Engine Damage
When your propeller is damaged, it’s almost always better to take financial hit to repair or replace it than it is to wait to see if it still runs. If you decide to keep running your boat with a bent, dinged, cracked, or worn propeller, what could have been a $500 propeller may very well turn into several thousand dollars in damage to your engine’s inner workings.
Running a boat with a damaged propeller puts a lot of strain on the gear system, even enough to strip them. In some cases, the damage to your propeller may cause vibrations when you are out on the water. If you feel unusual vibrations or shaking, you should return to shore and get it checked out. You don’t want to end up stranded out on the water.
How a Hydro-Shield Acts as a Propeller Guard to Protect your Boat from Extensive Damage
While a Hydro-Shield cannot protect your boat from every type of damage, installing one of our skeg-mounted propeller guards is an excellent way to reduce your chances of serious damage to your propeller in the event of an impact with rocks or a sandbar.
Our hydrofoils are designed not only to help your boat get up on plane faster and improve your fuel efficiency—they are also designed to absorb the brunt of any impact that may happen. In the case of a collision at a high speed, it is designed to bend in order to protect the skeg and the prop.
Want to Learn More about the Benefits of Installing a Hydro-Shield?
The benefits of installing a Hydro-Shield are numerous. For more information on how a skeg-mounted propeller guard and hydrofoil from Hydro-Shield can improve your boating experience, browse the rest of our site.
Ready to take the next step in improving your boat’s performance while protecting it from underwater impacts? Place your order online now or find a Hydro-Shield dealer near you.