Winter on an R31 in Elliott Bay

If you have a trouble light with the old school incandescent bulb, throw that in and you are good.
 
Ignition protection is mostly for gasoline. Diesel does not vaporize until 140F or so, so it will not explode in general temperatures. A question there is whether there could be gas fumes get in from dinghy or something.

We are away from EBM or else I'd lend you an extra bilge heater 🙁 Personally I would worry most about things in this order: transom/cockpit water; interior water in case of power failure; holding tank and head for same reason; engine room last since it is in a cool bath.

And personally I'd do this, just my 0.02:

1. Empty all the water by turning on the pump and faucets, pumping out until empty. Be sure to turn water heater off, and also drain it to the bilge. If you leave the webasto on, then this is optional (for my 0.02 I don't like running it when away).

2. Leave faucets open everywhere. I personally would not mess with RV fluid because you have heat in the cabin. Draining everything is a precaution in case of power outage. (OTOH EBM would let you know about power.) Open cabinets so warmish air gets into as many places as possible and also helps circulate heat from bilge.

3. Be sure to drain the transom shower as best as possible, maybe blow through it. Leave it open.

4. As for engine room heat, besides lamp or heater if you decide that is OK, another option would be to pile blankets on top of things to put a barrier to cold air from above. Running it would be another alternative. Put it out of gear and throttle up to 1100 and then 1500 as it gets warm.

5. If you have a cockpit enclosure (I don't recall one on Beagle), close it up to trap solar warmth during the day and also generally insulate.

6. Put a high/low thermometer or two in nooks and check them the next day to see what happened.

Or:

1. Stay on the boat 🙂

Good luck and stay warm!!
 
We pass by Beagle every time we head down to our R29CB on C dock. That is a fine looking boat you have there. Very handsome and, as a geologist, I applaud the great name. May you write the sequel to The Voyage of the Beagle.

But we are far from EBM in snowy NorCal now, relying on a friend to look after the boat. We have cabin heat going with an electric heater, have opened all drains—including the outside sink and shower (got my friend to fully extend the shower as high as possible so it would drain back)—and opened the cabinets beneath the interior sinks so that they get the heat. My number one worry is the potential for the power to go out at EBM, which as you know by now, it occasionally does. When that happens, with the cranky old inverter/charger we have, the batteries go flat (will be installing a Xantrex this spring that I can set so this does not happen). But right now Elliott Bay water temps are 49 degrees according to NOAA. That bath should protect the engine compartment pretty well and the one freshwater pex line to the shower.

I say all that, but we won’t know for a week or so. This is as cold as this boat has ever been.

And it looks like some significant snow will fall later this week. When you are down to take a picture of your boat covered in snow, please stroll up and take a picture of La Barka in C-83. And maybe all the other Ranger Tugs on the dock as well. It should be lovely and make a great Christmas card for next year.

Finally, on the marine forecast this morning for Puget Sound, this warning:

“A freezing spray advisory remains in effect through mid morning
today for the Eastern Strait and Northern Inland waters as strong
winds and cold temperatures persist across the area.”

Arrrr. I can only imagine one of our already top-heavy boats getting loaded up with ice in rough waters. Stay at the dock. ‘’

Jeff
 
This is the snapshot of the past 24hrs temp in the bilge of my boat:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqtC9_zYwM_Kh90dAlm ... w?e=8YrSiG
I have Pali in the bilge and as you can see, it kicked in multiple times at 37F raising the temp to ~40F with the avg temp in the bilge 38F. looking at the trends, I do not have confidence that the water alone would protect stuff in the bilge from freezing. Things below waterline - yes, however, when the temp drops to single digits I'd rather have an additional source of heat to protect things above the waterline.
I have never seen fairways in Everett marina being frozen like this:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqtC9_zYwM_Kh90eLx5 ... A?e=ysKlmw
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqtC9_zYwM_Kh90fnw9 ... w?e=l2Jpak
Deep freeze indeed, since my boat is completely frozen in ice, I'm taking my skates to the marina tomorrow, should be fun 😀
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqtC9_zYwM_Kh90gO_s ... Q?e=bSTW9V
Stay safe and warm!
 
Thanks Alex for you post on the temperatures. We are out of town but I have the same bilge heater as you as well as a cabin heater. I had a friend check on Salty Bliss yesterday and he said it was all good but I don’t think he opened the engine hatch. Seeing your temps gives me som confidence all will be good. I had drained the cockpit shower, sink as well as opened all other faucets before we left.
Just be glad the NW is not as cold as ND where I am. -15 this morning and yesterday we had -35 windchill and a bunch of snow.

Happy New year Tug Nuts!
 
I’ve been nervous about the cold as well. I have the cali engine compartment heater as well as an xtreme heat cabin heater. I had a friend check on the cabin and it was staying around 40. My evidence of the engine compartment heater working is my blink camera pointed at the cockpit, and the snow over the engine compartment /transom seat is mostly melted, compared with the side lazarettes which are not. 🙂

Happy new year and stay warm!
 
Finally got down to EBM and Beagle on Thursday (when the high was 34). Happy to report that, despite the temps, no leaks in raw or fresh water were visible. Cabin was pleasant enough to take hat, gloves, and coat off (maybe mid-50s) Ran the engine at 1400rpm and up to 150 degrees, which took nearly 20 minutes. I will have to check fresh water again after it thaws, but for now I got water out of every faucet and she passed the pump leak test (water pressure on, pump went 5 mins without cycling) with flying colors.

For peace of mind (and because it was supposed to hit the teens again) I left a spare cabin heater in the bilge.

I have a couple of Govee bluetooth temp sensors around my house (long story) and absolutely love them. While I probably wont set them up for remote monitoring, I might get a couple for Beagle so that I can understand how the boat is heating/cooling over time. They're cheap ($10 each for the bluetooth-only version) and the batteries/logging seems to last at least 12 months.

The docks were really slippery (I started heading down the dock and fell once on my butt), so unfortunately I didn't get a chance to snap many photos of other boats -- felt lucky for our placement at the top of the dock. However, I did get this fun slo-mo of the snow falling that I thought you all might appreciate:

https://share.icloud.com/photos/067IW80 ... Bay_Marina

Happy New Year!
 
We are also at EBM with a 31S and in the two years since we have been there we have not seen the temperature in the engine room drop lower than 36F, which happened last week when the outside was down to 17F or so. We have a Govee temperature gage in the cabin and the engine room. During this cold spell the cabin got down to 31F, with three small heaters going in the cabin.
 
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