Boat Ambient Temperature

[LadyInBed]

Went down today to check things over.
The basin where I launch the dingy was iced over so I had to cart the dingy along to the end of the basin to launch.
The boat deck was very frosty, the aft heads had a quarter inch of ice in the bowl but the water in the bilges was still liquid.
I removed the ice and tipped some antifreeze into the bowl and the bilges, thought it was a good idea!
I have a Max/Min Thermometer on a bulkhead, the Min was reading -6C
the Max was +30C - I hadn't reset it since the Summer holiday, happy days!

 

[Chris_Robb]

Went down today to check things over.
The basin where I launch the dingy was iced over so I had to cart the dingy along to the end of the basin to launch.
The boat deck was very frosty, the aft heads had a quarter inch of ice in the bowl but the water in the bilges was still liquid.
I removed the ice and tipped some antifreeze into the bowl and the bilges, thought it was a good idea!
I have a Max/Min Thermometer on a bulkhead, the Min was reading -6C
the Max was +30C - I hadn't reset it since the Summer holiday, happy days!

I have some water still in the tanks, so Ibloody well hope its not frozen. Hardway Gosport, still on the mooring.

 

[ccscott49]

When I wintered the boat in Holland for two years, the first year there was about two inches of water in the bilge which froze, not a problem, until a water pipe froze, burst and the water system pumped about 100 gallons of water into the bilges. (I was at work offshore) the float switches worked, but of course the impellors were frozen in bilge water, this burnt out all my bilge pumps!! I was lucky the pumps burnt out and not the wiring, or I would have lost the boat. The bilge pumps were wired (as accepted practice) direct to the busbars! They are now all wired via individual circuit breakers.
This is meant as a cautionary tale.
The boat by the way was solidly frozen into the canal/meer ice, 80cm thick!

I made sure the next year, which was equaly cold, my bilges were dry and the boat kept adequately heated!! Plus I turned off and drained the water, when I went to work.

 

[Blueboatman]

Hehe.
Yep that is my only worry. The sea is at 4-5c, the air/windchill gawd knows, the bilge water tank is a steady 7c but the Calorifier in a stern locker seems the weak link ( hoses lagged) in spite of 1500w 70% duty cycle cabin heating..

Definition of irony, you fire up the diesel for an hour every 3 days to heat hot water that you have no intention of using..Cleans the prop I suppose.

Note to self, add isolation and drain valves to calorifier once Screwfix can deliver some Hep20.

With boats , the devil is in the detail so they say, so this winter has been quite useful really, brrr.

 

[Robin]

Hehe.
Yep that is my only worry. The sea is at 4-5c, the air/windchill gawd knows, the bilge water tank is a steady 7c but the Calorifier in a stern locker seems the weak link ( hoses lagged) in spite of 1500w 70% duty cycle cabin heating..

Definition of irony, you fire up the diesel for an hour every 3 days to heat hot water that you have no intention of using..Cleans the prop I suppose.

Note to self, add isolation and drain valves to calorifier once Screwfix can deliver some Hep20.

With boats , the devil is in the detail so they say, so this winter has been quite useful really, brrr.

We sold our boat last month and the new French owners took it off 19th December from Poole to Le Havre, all in the dark, forecast West F5-7 and with ice on the decks as they left us. Apart from the winds which topped 35kts for a few hours around 2am, they found water over the floors which must have really been alarming. It turned out to be freshwater so not sinking and the bilge pumps saw water for the first time instead of dust! The suspect is the calorifier and or it's hoses as this was in the coldest area of the boat and above the waterline. We had filled the tanks for them for their trip so they had around 400lts all told dumped into the bilges.

At least being boatless now is worry free!