WB gods got my prop!!

Well today after about an hour of crappy water to wakeboard on I decided to pull the kids on the tube. I did stay in the middle of the lake and made sure there were no wakeboarders around.
Anyway, we take a short break and i get ready to take off again and the boat stalls, restarts then stalls again. Just then my GF says "Wait, the rope is stuck." Yep low and behold the rope is wrapped around the base of the prop. This is and I/O, so I lift the motor and we unwrap the rope. Well when we take off, major vibration in the steering. We slow down and check it out in the water and and I can not see a whole lot and neither can she. But she says an edge of the prop doesnt feel right. I figure lets get it on the trailer and check it out. Anyway, we get it in and the edge of one of the blades is torn back about 2 inches and about 1/4 inch into the blade, and one blade has bad cavitation marks. My question is would this rip in the prop cause the vibration? I am thinking yes, but could there be something else. I tried to eyeball the prop shaft as best I could and it didn't seem to be wobbling at all.
I know a new prop is deffinately need now and I want to go to a 4 blade. I have hit pretty much every prop sizer online and they all recommend something different. I currently have a stock 3blade 15 1/2 x18 prop and the recommendation I am getting is a 14 1/2 x 18 or a 14 x 17. Any thoughts? Like I said this is a 20 foot Maxum I/O with the 5.7 v-8. Thanks for the help.

I'm sure the vibration is from the damaged prop. You would be surprise what they can repair. I bet you could get if fixed for under $150 or use it as an excuse to get the new prop you have been wanting. I would just email ACME or OJ with your specs and what you want the prop to do. Sounds like its more of a family boat, so you may not want to go to agressive and lose top speed.

We run a 15 x 15 on our 18 ft I/O that thing is a monster out of the hole and will still go fast enough to barefoot. Also running the 5.7 Chev.

The one we have now has almost no cup though, our old one was slightly smaller (14.5 diameter) but has way more cup, I liked that one better, this one seems to take a second to bite when towing more than one rider.

Was the 14.5 a 4 blade? And what was the pitch? A couple places recommended a 14.5 x 17 which takes me down in pitch 1" and Michigan wheel said go to a 14.5 x 18 which is the pitch I have now.

Don't blame the wakeboard gods - Not their fault

Thist stuff happens. I ran over my buddies handle while turning around to pick him up this weekend. That is after we fixed TWO flats on our way to the lake. We had a chase boat filming that created an additional set of rollers to deal with and that combined with a sinking handle.... I guess we were lucky that there wasn't any prop damage. He's getting a new handle out of the deal.

If you get your prop repaired, it would be a good time to get it re-pitched if you want. It really will not cost you much if anything extra to change the pitch while it is getting repaired.

if your looking for a new prop, don't rule out the High-Five: I change to it and couldn't believe the difference in hole shot

I did look into getting it repaired since I am thinking about selling the boat, but the cost of getting a new 4 blade aluminum isn't a whole lot more and if I do keep the boat a little longer it may make it worth getting a new prop.
I would love to get the high 5 but not so sure about the cost right now, especially if I do sell the boat. Most people who buy older fakeboard boats don't understand props, they just want to toss their kids around on a tube
Deffinately not mad at the WB gods at all, they were just teaching me to not complain about crappy water when I sometimes add to it

14.5 was a 3 blade, so is the 15.