Date: August 2015

The project: New batteries. The ones that came with the boat weren’t holding a charge as well as they should be.

The considerations: Upgrade? Add another bank?

The outcome: We decided to keep things simple and replace with Trojan T-105 deep-cycle flooded golf cart batteries. Why?

1. It’s a tight fit! A major re-configuration of the space would be required for different sized batteries.
2. Price. Golf cart batteries are $180 (CAD) each.
3.  On Hydroquest we had to replace a battery down in Mexico… We learned that it’s nice to have something that is fairly standard and available in other parts of the world.
4. We plan to set up the boat with charging systems to keep the batteries nicely topped up at all times (try not to draw down more than 30%), so a huge storage capacity is not so important to us.

The outcome: 450 AH. Two banks, each with two 6V batteries in series. Plus a separate starter battery for the engine.