Freezing damage

Some advice and (hopefully) reassurance please..

We last ran our boat in salt water 2 weeks ago and due to one thing and another (car breaking and having to go away with work) we haven't had time to run it through or do the winterisation we've been planning to do, so it's currently sat out of the water with salt water in the engine. Temperatures unexpectedly dropped last night to -3 celsius and it's remained pretty cold today (about 2 degrees celsius).
Have we completely screwed up? Is there any chance the pipes haven't cracked?

We're going to go up to it tomorrow and run it through, how can we tell if it has cracked? Can we tell just running it on the muffs or will we have to wait till we take her out in the spring?

Thanks for any comments in advance

It will take a few cold nights to freeze you engine. It should be OK.

This doesn't help much, but the freezing point of seawater is about 28.4°F (-2°C), instead of the 32°F (0°C) .

All you can do will be to supply water to the system, fire it up.
Make sure that you immediately have sea water supply, then look for any water leaks around the engine and/or exhaust manifolds.

Then upon winterizing, and after your fuel stabilization, oil/filter change, cylinder fogging, etc, open up all low point drains and probe them as to remove rust scale.

Don't be fooled into using the Camco or Star-Brite Antifreeze Winterizing kits ..... unless you plan to drain again afterwards.



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I agree with chris.

I don't completely disagree.
But let's say that a not-so-cold day is 34* or 36*. That's only 2* or 4*'s away from freezing.
Let's say that 28*'s is getting dangerous to the point of H20 crystallization and expansion.
That's a spread of only 6*- 8*.

If the mass is at ambient of 36*, how many BTU's and in what time frame does it require to remove the additional heat, and bring the mass down to 28* or even lower?
If this could occur within a 24 hour period, I'd be concerned.

Let's now say that we caught it at a temperature where the H2O was just turning slushy.
It's cold out, we're at the boat now, working conditions are less than desirable, and we're now trying to drain a block and cylinder heads with slush in them.
Is it worth the risk as an experiment?

I'm just being the Devil's advocate here.


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If this were my boat i would pull the boat pout of the water, put water to the drive and start the engine and let it warm up till the t-stat opens.

Look around and under behind the engine if you don't see water dripping or pouring out of a crack your ok.

Shut off the water put the drive fully down.

Drain the petcocks on the manifold and engine block poking the holes with a stiff wire.

You didn't inform us with anything about what you have drive and engine wise.

Pull the battery, and close her up till next year.

I don't use any gas treatment actually i like to run my tank dry.

Drive fully down, bow as high as you can get it, bilge plug out, battery pulled or at least the cables disconnected.

I agree but would add that you can have a crack on the inside of the engine and see no leaks externally so make sure after running it at temp for a good amount of time you don't have milky oil in your crankcase. Also always use stabilizer in your fuel even if you are going to run the engine dry you will never get all the fuel out and stabilzer is cheap insurance.