Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

New to forum, ice in the bottom of wood drift boat??

Hello my name is Chris and I live in Alaska and am new to the forum and wood drift boats. This summer I bought an old wood drift boat and love it. I recently had an emergency and had to go to lower 48 for a few weeks. I asked my buddy to tarp it up but he forgot. So now that I'm home there is about 3 inches of ice in my boat. Just trying to get some feedback on the best safest way to remove it? Also should I expect any damage? Thanks in advance.

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Permalink Reply by Randy Dersham on October 24, 2012 at 3:12pm

The safest way to remove it would be to get it inside where you can apply heat to thaw, so get that boat in a garage if you can.

Adding a cover and running heat from underneath might get it done for you depending on your outdoor temperature.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on October 25, 2012 at 5:21pm

If you can't get it inside perhaps you can tilt it up and run water on the ice. It might not be much warmer but eventually it will thaw out the ice and if it's tilted it should run out. Do you have a farm supply store in the area? They have tank warmers and such that are used to heat up animal watering tanks, buckets and such.

Can you take it to a car wash? The water there should be pretty warm to, maybe even hot.