As the Danish company Gori, which makes Gori Propellors, approaches its 50th anniversary, it’s worth taking a few moments to reflect on just how much the invention of the two-bladed folding prop changed sailing and racing auxiliary-powered sailboats.
The original design, which won a Danish industrial design award in 1976, is still in production today. In tests run by several European magazines, the prop, alongside its three-bladed sibling, still creates very low drag. Surprisingly, the two-blade props being manufactured today are exactly the same as that design-winning original.
The development of a three-blade version for boats with larger engines created a second significant innovation in folding prop technology: overdrive. The prop can open in two configurations, standard pitch or a steeper pitch that provides extra torque.
I’ve used a three-bladed Gori on my 45-foot sloop and found the overdrive capability to be useful in flat-water motoring, cutting fuel consumption by about 20%.
Seahorse magazine recently published a full retrospective on gori Propellors. You can read the full story here.
