Freezing Spray on a Fuel Barge, Dutch Harbor, AK Postcard

When the temperatures drop to below freezing on the Bering Sea, a phenomenon known as freezing spray occurs. The salt water of the sea becomes so cold that when spray touches any object, it immediately turns to ice. After a while a build up of this ice from the sea spray can become so thick it makes a vessel top heavy. Crab boats with a load of crabpots are especially vulnerable to the adverse affects of freezing spray on ballast. The captains of those vessels have learned to cover their crabpots with thin plastic tarps, which shed the ice as the wind whips them up and down on the crabpots. This fuel barge doesn't have issues with being top heavy, since most of its mass is in tanks below the waterline, but turning the valves on deck requires removal of the ice.