TRINITY'S 1st Annual 2010/2011 Icing/ Anchoring Challenge

[Terry]

Ok, so did you "cut" the hole or just jump up and down a few times?
[/quote]

                Kristi, I actually punched the hole using the bottom of Steves steel 72 w/o a tank boot to break the ice. You can see the ice thickness in the pics (1st and 3rd) where Steve is holding a piece of ice edgewise, it is approx 1 1/4 to 1 1/2" thick.
                I came across a formula, I seem to recall that the military uses for ice strength, of the square root of the weight (in tons), times 4, equals, the number of inches of clear ice needed to support, that weight. Using this formula:
                A fully loaded 18 wheeler at 40 tons would require 25.3" of clear ice.
                My Silverado that I use to pull the Impulse would require 6.3" of clear ice.
                Me, without gear, (150 pounds) requires 1.095" of clear ice.
                Me, with gear, (say 250 pounds) requires 1.414" of clear ice.
                Now, using this formula and numbers for ice thickness it provides do seem very conservative :-\, but then again the military has a job to do, and its not like their paying for anything that might be lost thru, too thin of ice. It does appear that this may be the bare minimum to support a given weight, it seems to hold true with a divers weight anyway. To continue to check on this formula I will need to wait for tonight or maybe even tommorrow night (they say a low of 3 below for tonight, Brrrr) since we only had 5 or 5.5" on Prior yesterday,  before I can get my Silverado out there cruising about when she reaches the full 6.3" I'll let you know how it works out.      TRINITY