I notice that nobody is saying much about battery size. I think that would be a primary consideration. I've seen trawlers with a couple of car-sized batteries, and my boat uses the large 4D ones, 3 of them. My batteries are now 10 seasons old, I wonder if that should be considered also.... Fred Tug 44

Hey Fred, Good point. FWIW, I believe that the 4D size is a poor value and when the time comes, I think that you should switch to golf cart batteries. Having seen a cream and red plastic-cased battery at COSTCO, I looked it up on the Internet and found that it is a high quality brand. I don't have the info anymore. I bring it up because it had a different form factor than the typical golf cart battery. From your former business, you ought to have some contacts for batteries. How is retirement so far? George, my Golden died on July 29th and I am going to move off the boat and sell it. But selling may be difficult, Ron On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 7:23 PM, fred@tug44.org <fred@tug44.org> wrote: > I notice that nobody is saying much about battery size. I think that would > be a primary consideration. I've seen trawlers with a couple of car-sized > batteries, and my boat uses the large 4D ones, 3 of them. > > > My batteries are now 10 seasons old, I wonder if that should be considered > also.... > > Fred > Tug 44 > > > _______________________________________________ > > http://lists.trawlering.com/mailman/listinfo/great-loop_lists.trawlering.com > > To modify your Great-Loop subscription options (change email address, > unsubscribe, etc.) go to: > http://lists.trawlering.com/mailman/options/great-loop_lists.trawlering.com >

You would need to test your batteries to determine if the can still serve you as you expect. I knew my 7 year old set would be going out soon, and I wanted them to last until this year so I could get a new set when starting The Loop. Well dontcha know, the day we launched this Spring we anchored out in Cape May. Got up the next morning, turned on the inverter, and the batts couldn't supply enough power to run the coffee machine. The inverter shut down. That's when I KNEW the battery set was done. Your test may be as simple as living aboard for a few days and see how fast they discharge and how well they take the charge....then go from there. You can get numerical if you want....take specific gravity readings, but that can only be done validly if they batts have been sitting idle for at least 12 hours and not under a charge. R. -----Original Message----- From: great-loop-bounces@lists.trawlering.com [mailto:great-loop-bounces@lists.trawlering.com] On Behalf Of fred@tug44.org Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 7:24 PM To: great-loop@lists.trawlering.com Subject: GL: Inverter selection I notice that nobody is saying much about battery size. I think that would be a primary consideration. I've seen trawlers with a couple of car-sized batteries, and my boat uses the large 4D ones, 3 of them. My batteries are now 10 seasons old, I wonder if that should be considered also.... Fred Tug 44 _______________________________________________ http://lists.trawlering.com/mailman/listinfo/great-loop_lists.trawlering.com To modify your Great-Loop subscription options (change email address, unsubscribe, etc.) go to: http://lists.trawlering.com/mailman/options/great-loop_lists.trawlering.com