GL: Mud berth

[Wesley & Patty Eldred]

I have a great deal of respect for Larry's training, experience and advice 
but I am very sceptical about the advisability of giving over to the frost a 
precious asset that was not designed for those conditions.  I am also 
sceptical about comparing the effects of freezing in open water with the 
effect of freezing in mud.  I am also sceptical about a contention that 
temperatures cycling around the freezing point will result in more damage 
than sustained sub-freezing conditions.  I do agree that suitable cribbing 
to support the boat above the mud would be fine but that is easier to 
visualize than to accomplish.  My advice, as a lifelong Vermonter, is for 
Fred to get his boat onto dry land.

My opinion only.

Wesley
wpeldred at comcast.net


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <LRZeitlin at aol.com>
To: <great-loop at lists.samurai.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 2:41 PM
Subject: Re: GL: Mud berth


> Whether a boat will live long and prosper in a freezing mud berth depends
> largely on the shape of the hull. Boats with convex underbodies do well. 
> Boats
> with concave or flat bottoms or sides do less well. Naval architects have
> designed boats which were intended to survive frozen in the ice. Arctic 
> and
> Antarctic explorers whose boats were lost, simply chose the wrong sort of 
> craft. The
> most notable boat designed for freezing conditions was Colin Archer's 
> FRAM, the
> vessel used by Nansen to explore the North Polar regions and by Amundsen 
> to
> go to the South Pole. The section drawings showed almost a semi-circular 
> bottom
> with few protrusions. Freezing ice could not gain a grip on the hull and
> simply forced it upward, just like the flower bulbs that Dennis Bruckel 
> mentions.
> More modern examples are the Tylercraft sailboat hulls. Advertisements 
> touted
> their ability to be frozen in the ice without damage.
>
> A boat beached in mud will not sink as far as it does in water. I would be
> surprised if Tug 44 went down more than a few inches. Sheerlegs and a few
> railroad ties placed crosswise under the keel should be more than adequate 
> to
> support the weight. Frost heaving is less of a problem above Albany than 
> it would be
> further south in the Hudson Valley. The average midwinter temperature 
> stays
> below freezing most of the time. Further south, say around Poughkeepsie, 
> the
> average temperature is about 32 degrees F. This means that snow and the 
> first
> couple of inches of mud thaw during the day, then freeze up at night. 
> Concrete
> sidewalks buckle under these conditions. I'm not sure what it would do to 
> the
> stability of a mud berth. But farther north it should be OK.
>
> The best advice is to check around and get local old timer's advice. With 
> few
> exceptions for boaters from upstate NY, Vermont, Maine and Minnesota, most
> members of the Loop list have not had much recent experience with long, 
> cold
> winters.
>
> Larry Z