One of the critical systems on Snow Goose is the storage of electricity. Many of the books that I read before starting on this boat project had the same mantra: “keep the boat small and your systems simple”. Needless to say I didn’t listen for we are neither small nor simple. In fact, at times I went a bit out of the way to make things more complicated. And so, our Achilles heel (so to speak) is electricity. The fridge is hungry for the stuff as is the computer, lighting, fans, pumps, coffee pot, toaster, Etc. All of them gobbling up those little electrons. This power is stored in a rather large set of ‘house’ batteries that I installed about 7 years ago. If you consider how long your car battery lasts then you know that after about 5 to 7 years, batteries start to go bad just as ours have. Today was the day to replace the old batteries with the new.
So, up came the cockpit grates and out of their hole the six, 60+lb batteries, went over the side and into the dinghy. The batteries, all 360+lb of them, and another 300+lb of people and gear headed into the docks. (Anna wouldn’t get into the dinghy until she had personally read the owner’s manual and saw what the max load of the dinghy was.) I was glad that we had the new motor. At the dock, I lifted them out of the dinghy, lifted them again into a dock cart. I then ran the batteries up the ramp and to the waiting truck. Half of the job done.
are you replacing with AGM?
ReplyDeleteyou could do like the coast guard did for years, dump over the side. I guess just because they did your harbormates would not take kindly to such action, also you would lose the return fee.
ReplyDeleteHey just how much does Anna weight????
TaylerMad1- No the cost was too high for AGM so we went with the best battery that we could which is 6 volt golf cart batteries.
ReplyDeleteDanny- Their are certian things that we don't put on the web...that is if I still want meals on the table every day.