I am winterizing my boat this year for wet storage (in water) and had
a question regarding my wet-cell batteries- I have 2 of them. I live
in NY and it gets below freezing here in about a month so I am
thinking its not a good thing for them to freeze. Should I leave them
in with the battery charger going all winter? I have a 3-stage
charger that keeps a trickle charge on them. I have an old shop
battery I could swap in to keep the bilge pump running (if need be).

Any thoughts? Thanks for the feedback.

Rob wrote:

I am winterizing my boat this year for wet storage (in water) and had
a question regarding my wet-cell batteries- I have 2 of them. I live
in NY and it gets below freezing here in about a month so I am
thinking its not a good thing for them to freeze. Should I leave them
in with the battery charger going all winter? I have a 3-stage
charger that keeps a trickle charge on them. I have an old shop
battery I could swap in to keep the bilge pump running (if need be).

Any thoughts? Thanks for the feedback.

If you keep them charged there *should* be no problems but remember
Murphy and make sure they're in watertight battery boxes to prevent acid
eating anything should Murf pay you a visit.

I have kept a boat in Lake Erie over the winter many times. If you keep
the trickle charger on you will have no problem. This is so in that you
are keeping the liquid as hydrochloric acid which has a very low freeze
point. If you do not keep them charged the acid will turn back into
water and freeze at 32 degrees.