New Propellers

French Marine has now been supplying propellers for 50 years, for the past 10 years we have been repairing and servicing propellers. If you find that vessel lacks power has high fuel consumption or develops an unexpected vibration. It could be that you have the wrong propeller installed or the propeller is damaged.

A new propeller can solve these problems, but only if the correct propeller is selected. French Marine offers a free of charge propeller calculation service. Simply provide us with some information about your vessel and engine and the sort of performance you are after and we will calculate the correct propeller dimensions for your vessel.

Propeller Repair

You may not want to go to the expense of purchasing a new propeller. Why not let French Marine service your propeller. Servicing and repair can solve some of the following problems:

• Stop vibration due to an imbalance of a blade.
• Restore loss of performance due to incorrect pitch.
• Restore fuel consumption, due to a damaged or fouled propeller. Often many problems can be solved with relatively simple repairs.
• Repair accident damage; this includes bent blades, blades damaged by chain or repair worn edges of an outboard propeller.
• Build up the worn or broken tips to their original size.
  Re-pitch blades for different performance.
• Alter the diameter of the blades – this can make a difference to speed and acceleration.
• Correct the tracking of blades.
• Repair Cavitation damage - Often damage caused by cavitaion can be repaired improving fuel consumption.

French Marine can repair Bronze, Alloy and stainless steel propellers, up to 48 inches in diameter. We offer a fast turn around for commercial customers and a collection/delivery service. 

The left image shows a the results of collision with a heavy chain. As you can see the blades are badly bent and damaged. The right hand image show the finished result. This was possibly the most badly damaged propeller we have repaired.

Propeller nozzles

Nozzles (Some times referred to as Kort Nozzles) or ducted propellers are propellers surrounded with a hydro dynamically shaped ring or shroud. The shroud fits very closely around the propeller blade tips and is specifically designed to accelerate water flow through the propeller.

Ducted propellers offer significantly increased efficiency and increased thrust over standard open propellers, but only at low speeds, this makes them ideally suite to fishing vessels and tugs.

French Marine Motors have designed, manufactures and fitted their own propeller nozzles to a number of fishing vessels with excellent results.

The images above show French Marine Motors latest project. The bollard pull or thrust was measures by French Marine before and after the nozzle was fitted. By installing the nozzle the thrush developed had been increased by 28%.