Over-wintering boat - in water???
Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 8:27 am
Folks,
We normally pull our boat at the end of each season (which allows me to work on her exterior at my leisure (of which there never seems to be much of ... ).
This year there have been a number of costs associated with moving to a new marina (current marina has very high angle ramps down to dock plus ownership has adopted some odd approaches to boating). The new marina has you owning the dock you use (situation where you're leaving a 50' wide swath of shoreline, electric & water access provided). We bought the existing dock which needs a fair amount of work (1 corner of the main section missing and I'm gonna rebuild it shortly... Now the question:
I'm going to install a water agitator ( https://kascomarine.com/wp-content/uplo ... 2-8-18.pdf )
in the dock area to prevent icing (which, if it occured, could damage the dock and boat should the dock area freeze and the Ohio River rises (lifting dock and boat which, if it's locked in ice, could be bad! )).
So.... what I'd like folk's opinion on...
- With a water agitator in place at the head area of the dock and the boat backed into the slip, the water should remain ice free. Are there any inherent issues with this set up?
Eventually, we plan to buy a used section of dock as an opposing "finger". This would give us an 'anchoring point' at each end of the fingers to direct the deeper (and warmer?) water INTO the dock area which should do a better job of keeping the boat and dock areas ice free. As it stands right now, the placement of the agitator will have to run caddy-corner from 1/2 way up the left (existing) finger to the right corner of the existing left dock (as you look at the whole dock from the shore).
Bill n Sharon
We normally pull our boat at the end of each season (which allows me to work on her exterior at my leisure (of which there never seems to be much of ... ).
This year there have been a number of costs associated with moving to a new marina (current marina has very high angle ramps down to dock plus ownership has adopted some odd approaches to boating). The new marina has you owning the dock you use (situation where you're leaving a 50' wide swath of shoreline, electric & water access provided). We bought the existing dock which needs a fair amount of work (1 corner of the main section missing and I'm gonna rebuild it shortly... Now the question:
I'm going to install a water agitator ( https://kascomarine.com/wp-content/uplo ... 2-8-18.pdf )
in the dock area to prevent icing (which, if it occured, could damage the dock and boat should the dock area freeze and the Ohio River rises (lifting dock and boat which, if it's locked in ice, could be bad! )).
So.... what I'd like folk's opinion on...
- With a water agitator in place at the head area of the dock and the boat backed into the slip, the water should remain ice free. Are there any inherent issues with this set up?
Eventually, we plan to buy a used section of dock as an opposing "finger". This would give us an 'anchoring point' at each end of the fingers to direct the deeper (and warmer?) water INTO the dock area which should do a better job of keeping the boat and dock areas ice free. As it stands right now, the placement of the agitator will have to run caddy-corner from 1/2 way up the left (existing) finger to the right corner of the existing left dock (as you look at the whole dock from the shore).
Bill n Sharon