La Brisa Prop Selection

[Caswell]

1996 La Brisa with the 310 Pro Boss 351W

Current prop: 13x13 3 blade (13x13 4 blade is stock?)
Current top speed: 48 mph (speedo readouts)

The boat sees a bunch of tubing (3 person tube with a mix of kids and adults using it), and people learning to ski/wakeboard/kneeboard. Your basic all-rounder for a young, new to boats, family. I'd like to keep enough speed for barefooting in the future.

It handles great most of the time. The biggest issue is when towing the tube. Even with just my 50 lbs son in it, it starts to cavitate (engine RPMs riase and fall) on turns, and it doesn't want to turn (usually running about 3000 rpm). Getting someone to move further forward in the boat sometimes helps, but not always.

I haven't felt any slipping/cavitiating when launching, so I'm guessing/hoping the transmission is fine.

It seems like everyone is moving to the Acme 541 (13x12 3 blade), but the top speed they end up with seems to varry a lot. Good choice for getting a better low end without dropping my top speed too much?

[Cooose]

Reach out to Nettles props and run the scenario by them. They were super helpful with suggestions based on what I was looking to achieve. In my case I did go with the 541 but have a 454 pushing it and will be running a fair amount of ballast in a saltare. I know that I'm sacrificing top end for the torque, but that's the plan.

[Cusefan78]

My labrisa has the 541 on it. I get 48 at wot. Never had a problem with
Torque since I changed to it. As for the cavitation are you sure it's not the tranny starting to slip. I had the exact issue you are having with cavitation and it ended up being the tranny discs and barrel. Tranny discs were ground down and the barrel had small cracks in it. Look at the tranny oil and see if it looks and smells burnt. A rebuild is pretty easy job and I did a complete write up on the process. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Caswell]

I'd be perfectly fine dropping 1 mph to gain bottom end. You like the hole shot on the 541?

Transmission fluid looks good, normal smell. Doesn't mean much as I haven't had the boat long. Previous owner may have changed out the fluid right before I bought it.

[Cusefan78]

The hole shot is nice. Last year I pulled 20 older heavy guys out of the water back to back and no one had a problem getting out. The other thing to check is the wake plate. There is a write up on here somewhere on how to set it. If that is off I think it'll cause cavitation also. When my tranny went it was so bad I couldn't get it past 10mph before the slipping started.

[Caswell]

Hoping to pull my older heavy father-in-law out of the water, so it sounds like that's the ticket.

I've got my wake plate flat with the bottom of the hull right now. Couldn't find any posts with much detail, just yours asking if it should be flat, 1/4" up, or 1/4" down.