Ice in the Bilge

[Victor]

Is not a good thing, but will it necessarily cause damage, assuming the hull's in good shape?

[Gary E]

Buy a bag of rock salt, the kind you would toss on the sidewalk. Put plenty in the bilge and it will never freeze. THis is what I used every year that the boat stayed in the water and even though the ice was 12in thick outside, there was not even a skim ice inside.

[ 11-26-2005, 10:42 AM: Message edited by: Gary E ]

[johngsandusky]

bilges in both of my boats has frozen quite solid a couple of times, it didn't seem to hurt

[seo]

My 63' wood boat wintered five years in Belfast (Maine) harbor. No rock salt, no bubblers, no particular problems. Since she was fastened with galvanized plank fastening and backbone bolting I was not eager to have more salt around.
Bilge pumps can be a problem. Their little impellers can freeze, discharge hoses can freeze shut, etc. Then they kill the battery.
The system that worked best was to pump once a week with a 110V basement sump pump, although I suppose anything that worked would have been fine. Also, I just pumped the engine room and the watertight compartment ahead of it, and let the steering compartment and forepeak compartment find their own levels.
Since Belfast harbor is the mouth of a freshwater river (The Passagasawakeag. say that quickly five times...) much more time was spent preventing great drifting pans of hardwater river ice from coming down and crashing into the hull. The best solution was to get her in behind a line of pilings and let them bear the brunt.
seo

[Stari27]

I left it to others to winetrize my Richardson 34 Sedan. They could not find the driain plug (located 6' from the bow on the port side) and I had no tapr that year. The fall rains- copious in Nova Scotia- drained in through the engine hatches. My friend who live next door to the Cheboque Aquatic Club, added salt, but it froze anyway. As a resdult, the next year I had the hull completely re-caulked. During this process, there was no sign of damage from the frozen water. And since then the hull has been tighter than before.
PetrB

[neptoon]

if it is a wooden boat you can pop your garboards...glass boats can take more , but the pressure is still there...yes i agree with rock salt. keeps bacteria down too