Bubbler value as ice breaks up
 

Didn't want to hijack the Bear Power thread with a bubbler discussion.

I'm under the impresasion that the bubbler might save some damage from freezing ice lifting the dock, etc, but once the ice starts to break up and move with the wind, the bubbler has little or no effect. Remember the great web cam videos showing ice moving up and over a breakwater last year.?

True. A bubbler will have no effect on a large floe of ice that could weigh tons headed your way. It will help with pitching and heaving due to freeze only.

You're right, Descant, a bubbler or dock circulator (ice eater) is powerless to ward off moving ice masses headed for a particular dock. Their benefit is keeping the ice from freezing around dock pilings and creating a buffer zone of open water at the end of a dock to protect it against expanding ice. They won't protect your dock against wind-blown icebergs.

I agree but sort of disagree, the posters are right but... If you adjust your blubbers all winter long and do a good job come ice flow time. The space that you can create can buy you a buffer, and then if the ice starts to flow, the ice on either side of you will crash against the land on either side of your dock while you still have open water at your dock. The ice hitting the shore will push back on the ice sheet, and hopefully buy you some time and allow your ice eaters to eat you some more buffer. Obviously every dock is different, wind and ice flow, laterally rather than head on also makes a difference. But this can definitely work, so I wouldn't say they are useless, but mileage may vary.

That would all depend on your exposure. So many variables.

Relax
 

"Originally Posted by MDoug View Post

Our dock needs the bubbler on."

So I guess MDoug and others on Bear Is. can breathe a little easier.
Doesn't much matter if the bubbler is on at this time of year, and it will come back on before there is serious freezing weather of any significant duration.

......easy-peasy (wink!)!
 

An ice sheet can be very heavy, like weighing hundreds of tons or something ..... but here's what has worked for me.

Sit out on the furthest edge of your dock, armed with a long handle ice chopper and a big hammer ...... and, as the ice moves in, just start chopping up the ice, effectively mitigating the ice damage by turning it into chopped ice .... and once the ice sheet reaches your shoreline, the whole big sheet of ice should stop moving forward ....and you will have chopped out a 'zone of no ice' and rescued your dock from getting crushed by the moving ice ...... easy-peasy;)!

On the down side, you may have to stay out on your dock for a long time.....like for 3-hours.....or something....until the big ice sheet has its forward motion stopped by the shoreline.

Chop, Chop
 

Hard to chop pack ice when you are located on the Left Coast!!! ⛏