The next item on my list was the replacement of the prop on my big motor. While at the recent Roosevelt Lake tournament a hit some rocks on a submerged island while slowly idling, but it was enough force to significantly ding up two ears. I removed the old prop, installed the hub onto my spare, mounted in onto the lower unit shaft, torqued it down to 55 lbs, and packaged up my damaged prop so I could ship it to Mark's Props in Indiana. $145 for the repair, which is very reasonable, and their turnaround is super quick. What is unfortunate is that I just changed props, after dinging my other one, which I had repaired, only two months ago, guess I better be more careful.
I now carry a spare prop and hub with me always, after spinning a hub at Apache with Larry White this year. I had never spun a hub before, but the tourney Larry and I fished at Apache launched out of the Marina. When we returned for the weigh in, the standard procedure done by all anglers was to beach the boat on the sand, bow into the shore. I had never done this before. I think I made a mistake when backing out by not raising the prop high enough to clear the sand, so I believe my prop was still in the sand while I was trying to back out. The additional resistance likely created sufficient force that the plastic hub inside my propeller shattered within the prop. We discovered the problem when motoring back to Burnt Corral from the Marina, when suddenly the boat lost its forward momentum, but the motor was still running the same RPM's. Larry looked at me when it happened, and said, " I think you just spun a hub." Oh, the lessons we learn when boating. BE CAREFUL OF YOUR PROP.