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A strategically walled-off corner of Wildcat Propellers’ state-of-the-art facility in Chesapeake, Virginia, houses specialized machinery that could change America’s marine industry. I saw it for myself while touring the shop at the end of last year, and my jaw dropped as Wildcat’s team unveiled tomorrow. Until these pages could reach your hands, they requested that I keep everything secret. Curious and staggered, I asked myself, “Who are these people?”
Before my recent visits to two prop shops, Treasure Coast Propellers and Wildcat, I had little understanding of this important segment of our industry and the people involved. Over the years, I’d picked up the basics of how pitch affects a boat’s speed, efficiency and fishability, but I didn’t realize just how many factors the folks at prop shops consider when perfecting performance and harmonics, including the boat’s shafts, alignment and rudders. Such work requires skilled experts.
Props that pass through the doors of shops such as Precision Propulsion, Black Dog Propellers, Premium Propellers, Lauderdale Propeller, TCP and Wildcat go through an intimate assembly line of tuners, welders and finishers. These folks literally keep the wheels of the sport-fishing industry turning. “Just like you can’t drive down the road without tires,” says Big Oh’s Capt. Newt Cagle, “you can’t fish without props.”
“Nothing is going well on the water unless the props are right,” says Capt. John Bayliss of Bayliss Boatworks. “Prop shops don’t get all the credit they are due. These guys are kind of the unsung heroes.” Here we’ll take a look at how some of these heroes got into the business and their distinct roles within the industry.
Propeller Shop Basics
Typically, sport-fishing props are made of nibral—a blend of nickel, bronze and aluminum—and are manufactured by a third-party foundry, such as CJR in the United Kingdom and VEEM in Australia. Once new wheels arrive from overseas or old ones come in for repair, the technicians at prop shops use computer programs such as Prop Scan—software that detects a prop’s contours using an optical sensor—to evaluate the prop’s tolerance and the slight changes necessary to achieve the proper pitch. Then they pull out their hammers, and the thunderous clang of metals announces a day’s work.
“Nibral has a memory,” says Bayliss. “There are parameters you can’t go past when tuning. The best prop shops can make the smallest adjustments to deliver a prop that is perfectly balanced.”
Treasure Coast Propellers
As I arrived at TCP in Stuart, Florida, I walked past three men loading a set of wheels into the bed of a pickup. I quickly scooted by to the company’s front door. There, behind a desk, sat TCP’s most endearingly irreverent employee, Capt. Don Leighton.
Leighton’s been with the company 14 years and serves as an office manager, acquisitions master and delivery driver, regularly visiting marinas and boatyards to drop off props for customers. “I have four 40-inch props in my truck right now,” he says. “My ass is growing to the seat of that truck!”
Moments later, Paul Savard emerged from outside to greet me. The South Florida native grew up fishing with his father aboard his family’s Viking Dravas and bought TCP in 2015 from Herb Jarrett, the company’s founder.
I soon realized Savard had been one of the guys loading props. It’s no surprise that he was busy with manual labor upon my arrival. He and his five employees serviced over 1,000 props in 2024, and Savard is hands-on in all aspects of the operation. Ninety-nine percent of the business caters to the recreational boating sector, and 75 percent of those jobs are for sport-fishing boats.
Since Savard was one of TCP’s first customers, he and Jarrett had worked together each year on Dravas’ annual prop maintenance. Other than that, Savard didn’t have his eye on prop work until after he graduated from college.
“The thought of working a typical office job did not excite me,” Savard says. “Fortunately, at the time, Herb was looking to retire. He knew he had built something special and wouldn’t let it go to just anyone. A mutual friend suggested that I may be a good fit. We talked and decided that I would work for him, start at the bottom and learn everything I could. In time, if it worked out, we would move forward with transferring ownership. I quickly excelled at my work and took on more responsibility. Eventually, the time was right for both of us.”
With experience in the various facets of the business—first in grinding and finishing, and then in tuning and repair—Savard was well prepared for ownership. He handles much of the customer service himself, discussing projects with captains, owners and builders.
Michael Rybovich and Sons, just a short drive, is one of TCP’s most regular and long-standing clients. “When you deal with TCP, you’re dealing with the owner. I like that,” says Michael Rybovich. “If Paul tells us something, we know the buck stops with him.”
Savard invited me to explore the facility, and we met Tom, TCP’s only other tuning technician, as he stared at a computer screen displaying the tolerance metrics for a nibral prop. He paused until we could put on our hearing protection, a must for anyone in the tuning bay of a prop shop. Tom began carefully hammering the prop’s sleek and sharp blades, making the slightest adjustments that would improve the boat’s performance, reducing cavitation and vibration while increasing fuel efficiency and speed.
Meanwhile, Savard pointed to various wheels in the shop, identifying the reputable sport-fishing program behind each set. Although he admitted he isn’t good with faces, he can recognize nearly every prop he’s ever worked on.
“Paul’s extremely personable,” says Cagle. “We recently worked with him to figure out the best set of wheels to get the boat to quiet down. He took the time to answer my questions and explain why some of my ideas may or may not work. He let me pick up props after close and answered my calls on Saturdays.”
As TCP reverberated with hammered metals and glowed under welding sparks, I noticed that Savard brought a quietness to the job. He seemed steady. Perhaps that’s a trait made possible by the lessons he’s learned from his most trusted advisers.
“Herb taught me how to run the business, interact with customers and manage employees,” Savard says. “Michael Rybovich has taught me a lot too. I’ve had the privilege of specifying the props for his boats, and in turn he has shared a wealth of information on boatbuilding and life. But first and foremost, my father has been my most influential mentor. He instilled a strong work ethic and encouraged me to be curious and unafraid to take things apart to figure out how they work.”
WildCat Propellers
Upon first meeting Troy Erb, the owner of Wildcat Propellers, I was immediately struck by his stature. At 6 feet, 3 inches, the salient veteran establishes a commanding presence—formal, polite and direct. We settled into his office, a room decorated with old props and a myriad of whitetail and mule deer mounts. The thick, woolly hide of a bison, its size rivaling a Toyota Tacoma, hung along the wall behind his desk. Sitting there, Erb looked profoundly American.
Erb grew up in a small Amish town in Michigan. Immediately after high school, he served as a machinest mate third class aboard the USS Harry S. Truman. Once he got out, Erb looked for work that would allow him to use his hands. In 1999, he went for an interview with Larry Carlson, the original owner of Wildcat Propellers.
Erb spent his first year with Wildcat covered in metal dust in the finishing bay. Like Savard, he worked the various departments within the company, which primarily serviced military and commercial props, and eventually earned his stripes as a tuning technician. By 2003, Erb was Wildcat’s shop supervisor. Shortly afterward, his role would change entirely.
“Larry and his wife called me over one night for dinner,” Erb recalls. “Larry cocked his head and, with a peculiar look on his face, said, ‘We’re done with Wildcat.’ I thought I had just lost my job! Then he asked me if I wanted to buy it.”
By 2006, Erb took the reigns as Wildcat’s sole owner. “Larry and his wife now live in Northern California and sell kettle corn at concerts,” Erb says with a smile. “He still follows along with everything we do and tells me he’s proud.”
Although Wildcat maintains a tremendous amount of work for military and commercial vessels, the company now has standing relationships with the recreational sector too. The business serviced over 3,000 props in 2024, a whopping stat that doesn’t even include outboards. Forty percent of those jobs were for sport-fishing boats.
“After I bought Wildcat, I drove down to the Outer Banks every day to see how we could work with the boatbuilders there,” Erb recalls. “I met John Bayliss, and he told me he’d give me one chance, but that I’d need to have the prop back to him by the next day. We got it done, and he decided to use us for Bayliss’ work.” Erb and I shared a laugh over this story. When I later asked Bayliss about it, he chuckled and, with a tone drenched in sarcasm, said, “That doesn’t sound like me!”
Bayliss Boatworks is just one of many builders, including Spencer Yachts, Winter Custom Yachts, F&S Yachts and Duffie Boatworks, that work with Wildcat for prop work, running-gear packages and more. The company of 21 employees has two full-time drivers that rack up 1,500 to 2,000 miles a week shuttling props to the Outer Banks and other locations.
Many of Wildcat’s employees have been with the company for long stints, sometimes upwards of 15 years. “Our technicians and staff are some of the very best in the country,” Erb says with immense gratitude. “It’s very important to find people you can lean on.”
On my tour through Wildcat’s facility, complete with a game room, a soon-to-be gym and several empty offices ready for growth, I met the company’s many faces, including Shawn King, Wildcat’s bearded military supervisor, and Brian Marks, the company’s affable recreational and commercial supervisor. Both men busily answered calls, met with clients and worked closely with staff. “I know Troy doesn’t want all the focus on him,” Marks says. “But the truth is, none of this would be here without him.”
Wildcat embraces the industry’s most advanced tech, including a handheld scanner that can produce a detailed 3D computer model of a prop or even an entire hull. The company also has a CNC machine to make certain props in-house from raw castings provided by CJR, a foundry in the United Kingdom.
“We just put a set of Wildcat and CJR’s Marlin Series wheels on the Billfisher, and we were the fastest we’ve ever been,” says Capt. Jon Duffie of Duffie Boatworks. “We weren’t hurting for bites either. I like that they’re built right down the road and that I have input. We can play with diameter, blade area and pitch to maximize speed and performance and have low slippage and high fishability. It’s nice to have that flexibility and a partner that will consider your suggestions.” Notably, 20 percent of Wildcat’s business now relies on milling props from foundry castings in-house.
But the most exciting tech at Wildcat has, up until now, quietly come to fruition, thanks to a partnership with the Navy, Edison Welding Institute and the National Ship Repair Project. It poses a big change for the industry, especially for those interested in purchasing American-made products.
With my mouth agape, I watched as Justin, one of Wildcat’s highly trained welders, pulled back the curtain on the company’s newest toy. Using a remote, Justin began operating a massive 3D printer designed to fabricate props. “COVID opened our eyes to the supply chain,” Erb says. “3D printing will remove the need for a foundry. With a primary focus on military and commercial projects, we will soon be able to deliver new American-made props and running-gear packages in a fraction of the time!”
The early stages of the pilot project proved that it’s possible to 3D-print a prop, so once Justin is fully trained, he will lead Wildcat’s 3D printing program. “This will be such an upgrade for the company,” he says. “Additive welding is the future.” Well, it looks like the future is indeed already here at Wildcat.
The need for props is unquestionable, and the hunt for the right ones is a quest often riddled with sorcery. With their reliable customer service, exceptional skills and forward thinking, the personnel at prop shops like TCP and Wildcat are an asset to sport-fishers everywhere. Although they log hours in spaces echoing with the sounds of singing metal, they’re all quietly propping up the marine industry, one gleaming blade at a time.
