Help! Frozen Boat!

I live on the Kankakee River in the midwest and due to some unseasonably freezing temps the River has frozen over. MY BOAT IS STILL IN THE WATER. It's a Bass Tracker aluminum hull with a Mercury 40hp outboard, the river is frozen about 3 inches thick there near shore. We broke the ice up a bit around the boat and have it plugged in to keep battery charged. How much damage is this going to inflict on my motor or my boat? should i put a light or something in the bilge to unfreeze the water that i'm sure is in there? With the weather outlook i'm not sure my boat will be able to come out at all this winter, the ramp is about a mile down river.

 

Better get the boat out fast. I don't know how though.

 

I did not find that comment helpful!

 

Bubbles . . . lots of them . . .

 

thank you all. I'll be deleting my account now.

 

You get mad very easily. Bubbles will work if you can produce them below the boat somehow. If you drill a hole just upstream of the bow and rent a gas-powered compressor (wheelbarrow type), running the air hose into the hole and wide open, then when the ice around the boat melts, get a cross-beam 12 ft long tied across the gunwales at the bow, two men at each end of the beam to lift the boat up and onto the ice, then use outboard of boat to drive boat up onto ice, then pull to landing with skidoo, then break up ice and back in trailer...

 

Shouldn't be a problem. I operated 2 stroke outboard motors in heavy ice conditions for many years with no problem. The boat was in the water permanently, frequently frozen into thick ice. Ice damage to baots was caused when Ice Breaking ships cleared pack ice and compressed it into small craft ashore.

I assume modern outboard cooling to the similar that used to 30 years ago. Ask your outboard shop.

 

Seems he didn't last very long. I thought bubbles was a great idea and have seen it before, in Popular Mechanics or somewhere.

 

Right. That's what is used at many marinas when you live aboard your boat for the winter in a harbor that freezes. The marina deploys sunken hoses with compressed air streaming out to keep the ice away.

 

bubbs247365, you should come back and have a grown up discussion. We have not and will not tease you. This is a great place to learn and we all receive our share of good-natured(mostly) ribbing.

 

Do they not sometimes make a framework from galvanized pipe with drilled holes every so often shaped like a long rectangle?

 

http://www.tmpmarine.com/pages/bubbler_systems/bubbler_systems.html

 

Here someone recently used a chain saw to release his boat from ice. Made it into the local news.

At least one manufacturer also sells a circulation pump, but it must supported under water in a suitable position. It is used to circulate water a few degrees Celsius warm into surface on the position that must be kept open from ice.

Can you get a lorry with a crane near enough, there are cranes that are able to handle 1000kg over a distance closer to 20m installed in very regular lorries? Then you could just hack the boat free from the ice and lift it away.

With 3" ice I think you could also man-haul a trailer into the spot and pull the boat on the trailer over ice, but consider how you are able to secure the trailer in position for that. I wouldn't drive on the ice before it is at least 8". It could be that 3" is way too thin for a boat on a trailer?

 

If he could bubble some warm air under the ice he might be able to melt it even if it is 3 inches thick. Just drill a hole and shove in a hose, or several hoses.

 

We use that here... A hose attached to a holed metal tube laid on the seabed, below the boat, a small compressor (small, as in tiny, a 12 vdc car compressor may be ok for a emernency), and the bubbles will lift the warmer water up to the boat as they rise... To get that in place, you'll only need a rather small hole in the ice.

"Originally Posted by bubbs247365
thank you all. I'll be deleting my account now. "

But come to think of it, you don't seem to need an explenation to make your sound decisions... To wait this long to think of your boat...? (I've done that, but then I was thinking that the boat was "ok, sunk"... I also knew the work ahead to get it up/ running).