Catamarans in Ice?

[tolly]

Has anyone of you any experience in letting a cat stay over winter in waters where the ice will lock it in? How would a cat hull react to be in-iced if the ice is steady and not moving around?
Are there differences between GRP and epoxi hulls in this?
I have tried it with monohull boats and it works just perfect, but that is only one hull.
That's a problem living in areas where winter is winter (Sweden in this case).

[freetime]

Ask..... hmmm..i cant remember his name... www.swedcat.nu they had their FP Salina 48 in ice last winter.....

It is their charter and demo boat so just ask them...

The boat was in the archipelago of stockholm....

[Nordic cat]

There is no difference whether one or more hulls, as you say, the problems arise for all boats if the ice starts moving. You just need to ensure that the hull shape is such that up/down movement is not impeded, so that the ice can not stop the boat moving up and down.

I had my Iroquois in the water with 35 cm ice one year, no problems.

Alan

[sandy daugherty]

I left my Stiletto 30 in the water with 5" of ice, and 3-4' of snow and ice piled up on the tramps and decks. In spite of the extra weight, the hulls rose as the ice squeezed, without so much as a scratch on the fiberglass, but it took off a good bit of ablative bottom paint. This was in freshwater.

[tolly]

I have since 13 years a 50', 1924 built Colin Archer sailing boat, with 2-2,5" oak hull and oak frames. This boat has always been lying in the water and ice and has been in 10" ice and pressed against the concrete quay when I wasn't fast enough to bring it out a yard before the ice froze. Never any problem whatsoever.
Our little 22' sailing monohull was kept in the ice, beside a free floating pontoon mooring with no problem, except a little loss of bottom paint just beneath the water line, just as your experience, Sandy.
That is my own experience, but as for a multihull I am concerned about the ice being able to make pressure between the two hulls, trying to separate them. I am not worried that the hulls actually will separate, but just that the forces can make damage to the bonding structure.
I am about to (if everything works out as planned) to buy a 47' epoxi cat, and that will mean that I have to decide how to do in the winter. Fortunately at the moment my mooring is by a quay in a small river in the middle of town, where there mostly isn't any ice. But I always want to prepare for the worst, so I don't get any negative surprises.

So, has any of you had any bad experiences from boats in ice, under ordinary circumstances, or is it only positive?