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Fleet Admiral
- Joined
- May 26, 2009
- Messages
- 9,715
If you keep your boat on a trailer/lift in freezing weather, but take it out: watch out for frozen bilge water.
First, drain your boat by removing the hull plug. Water freezing in a bilge or inside fittings can crack your through-hulls, sea cocks and pumps, and you won't know until too late.
Water around the bilge pump can freeze its impeller and water in its hose can block it.
If you turn on a frozen bilge pump, it might sound OK but you might have a broken shaft.
So before you leave the dock, dump some water in the bilge and test the float switch and verify that it pumps that water OUT. Check your bilge after you depart the dock but before you get too far out.
Close your seacocks. If they or the feed tubes are plastic and not brass or stainless, replace them.
A 21' Grady sank in the Bay just before New Year's b/c its raw water pump for the live well blew apart. It had been on the trailer/lift during freezing temps. Everyone survived b/c they could jump onto a nearby boat when they realized what happened. Very close call. Live and learn.
First, drain your boat by removing the hull plug. Water freezing in a bilge or inside fittings can crack your through-hulls, sea cocks and pumps, and you won't know until too late.
Water around the bilge pump can freeze its impeller and water in its hose can block it.
If you turn on a frozen bilge pump, it might sound OK but you might have a broken shaft.
So before you leave the dock, dump some water in the bilge and test the float switch and verify that it pumps that water OUT. Check your bilge after you depart the dock but before you get too far out.
Close your seacocks. If they or the feed tubes are plastic and not brass or stainless, replace them.
A 21' Grady sank in the Bay just before New Year's b/c its raw water pump for the live well blew apart. It had been on the trailer/lift during freezing temps. Everyone survived b/c they could jump onto a nearby boat when they realized what happened. Very close call. Live and learn.
