Becker
New Member
I generally agree and was pretty set on staying with the 17p (which is my dealer's suggestion) except I've seen a couple posts on this forum and others stating that the 17p High Five really doesn't work as well as the other models due to its slightly different size/design. Decisions, decisions. Thanks for your input.
Spent a week in Tahoe with the boat and prop and thought I would share my experience. We have a new 200SD with the standard 3-blade 17p SS prop (the Mirage). Never really had any issues with power while boating, even when wakeboarding or skiing, but we haven't had the boat long. I got the 17p Quicksilver version of the Hi-5 for Tahoe (and future high elevation trips) from Nettle Props in Texas (good folks there) and I thought it worked great. We don't care about top end much (35 mph is pretty much our speed limit with the family on board) and so it didn't bother me that we never got above 36-38 mph while in Tahoe. RPMs were around 4600-4800 at that point. Watersports were great. While towing the medium- to smaller-sized folks I could get on plane early (even better than at our local lake) and easily stay there around 16-20 mph (where my folks like to be). Our one big guy (230 lbs) was a little bit more of a challenge to get on plane but it didn't take much. We always had a pretty full boat with people and gear (usually 5-6 people and coolers, boards, skis, towable, etc.). So maybe the 3-blade would have done fine but we had a great trip and the new prop really seemed to work out well. I left the Hi-5 on and will hopefully try it out at our local lake this weekend to see if it can be our every day prop. We'll see.