Can batteries be placed in lazarette?

[JonnyQuest]

Hail Afourians!
Spring has sprung and I am hoping to tackle a couple of projects that lingered over winter. I will be rebuilding my companionway steps and am considering moving my batteries from there to the port lazarette. Two 6V Trojans for house and a single 12V marine cycle start battery for now.

I've read up on proper battery orientation with concern for spillage on tacks, but my real concern is regarding if others have moved their batteries aft like this and found any issue with their boat now listing due to a weight shift, or causing the transom to squat too much.

Details: I'm talking about a 1975 ODay, placing the three batteries in the port side lazarette, closest to the centerline as possible, and probably on raising them 6-12 inches higher than their current location at the bottom of the steps. I'm thinking this wouldn't induce a noticeable list, but it might cause the stern to squat somewhat.

I know we have talked about long battery cables several times before, so I'm guessing batteries are housed in lazarettes without much sail performance issues.

Thanks in advance for the comments,

Jonny

[JonnyQuest]

Hail Afourians!
Spring has sprung and I am hoping to tackle a couple of projects that lingered over winter. I will be rebuilding my companionway steps and am considering moving my batteries from there to the port lazarette. Two 6V Trojans for house and a single 12V marine cycle start battery for now.

I've read up on proper battery orientation with concern for spillage on tacks, but my real concern is regarding if others have moved their batteries aft like this and found any issue with their boat now listing due to a weight shift, or causing the transom to squat too much.

Details: I'm talking about a 1975 ODay, placing the three batteries in the port side lazarette, closest to the centerline as possible, and probably on raising them 6-12 inches higher than their current location at the bottom of the steps. I'm thinking this wouldn't induce a noticeable list, but it might cause the stern to squat somewhat.

I know we have talked about long battery cables several times before, so I'm guessing batteries are housed in lazarettes without much sail performance issues.

Thanks in advance for the comments,

Jonny

OK, looks like the batteries shouldn't be located in the same compartment as my gasoline fuel tank...hadn't even thought of that!

Back to the drawing board then.

[JOHN COOKSON]

Also:

How high up on the hull does the bottom paint go?
If you get freeboard immersed in the water where there is no bottom paint you'll get mega growth on the hull.

TRUE GRIT

[hanleyclifford]

Wherever you put the batteries it is a good idea to build them into an enclosed battery box with a dedicated overboard vent. Part of the re-location exercise is changing the location of other things (tools, for example) to keep good trim.

[Elizabeth_B29]

How is charging of different series batteries handled?

Hello JQuest,
I too currently use two 6 volt golf cart batteries as my house and starting bank. I want to add a third 12volt battery for starting backup or dedicated to starting. How did you configure the charging circuit wiring and battery selector switch?

Thanks!

E_B29

[romantic comedy]

EB29

I use something similar. have two 6 volts for house, and one 12 volt for starting.

I hook the house bank to battery 2 of the selector, and the 12 volt to battery one. The charging is hooked to the output terminal.

if I want to use or charge a bank, I turn the selector to that bank. If i want to charge or use all, I turn to both.

There are other ways and ideas, that might hear about here.

[Dave Neptune]

Go std

Elizabeth, mine is just like "romantics" and it works fine. I do like the "KISS-RULE" and try to keep it in practice on the boat. You could follow Neil's logic on battery switching, it would work a bit better and the management also needs to work harder~~your choice!
I am still using the stock alt as I have no refridgeration and have had no issues for many a year.

Dave Neptune

[ndutton]

You could follow Neil's logic on battery switching, it would work a bit better and the management also needs to work harder~~your choice!

A couple of heavy hitters like refrigeration and electric windlass are game changers. They require additional capacity and therefore management to go along with it.

Actually, my switching system is still simple, one tier above a basic engine-house-both system. My engine switch is managed the same as engine-house-both, the house switch simply chooses which house bank. More detail and a drawing can be found in the recent 'How much voltage drop' thread.

Interestingly there was a discussion about this on SBO maybe a month ago. The discussion was being led by their resident guru and included a bunch of automation (ACR's and combiners). I tried to contribute with an example of old school battery switches doing the same thing, same stuff as I offered here, and whoa Nelly did it ever hit a nerve. I was attacked and completely discounted (you're the only one with any brains, right? and the like). Opinions that differ from the guru are unwelcome as well as, in this case, the KISS principle.

Full disclosure: I'll admit my opening post was a little tongue-in-cheek: "I've never understood what's so difficult about turning a battery switch"

[hanleyclifford]

I agree with Neil on this one: keep it simple. Manual switching is not an onerous task and keeps you "connected" to your system, as it were. I have a main buss bar to which all batteries are switched individually and from which all loads are drawn.

[JonnyQuest]

Hi Elizabeth,

You said: " ...I want to add a third 12volt battery for starting backup or dedicated to starting."

My 12V is indeed set up as a starting backup battery, as I use my House (MAIN) bank for everything, like you. Small engines like mine requires very little to kick it over.

For my charging circuit: I have my 2 6V batteries and my single 12V battery hooked up to an Xantrex Echo charge unit and a Xantrex True Charger 2 for charging both banks. The charger is hooked up to the house/GC batteries and the Echo unit handles charging the start battery as a digital combiner.

Battery Selector Switch Wiring: Golf cart/house batteries hooked to the 1 position on the selector switch, 12V start battery hooked up to the 2 position. (In reality I start off my GC batteries and simply label/consider my 12V battery as an emergency/backup bank). Alternator charge wire is hooked direct to the house bank and NOT to the battery select switch. That way alternator charging follows the same logic as the shore charger--primary charging to house bank and Echo charger/combiner allows the backup bank to be charged automatically.

Thus with my trusty label maker I have added labels to identify my battery selector switch 1 position as MAIN, and 2 position as EMERGENCY BACKUP. And I just operate as you do off of the MAIN (house) bank for starting and house needs.

Plenty of discussion/desciption on this setup here:

http://forums.catalina.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?p=742417&posted=1

and

http://forums.catalina.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=104505

Hope that helps! If you need more specific info, let me now.

[Elizabeth_B29]

House Bank and 12VDC starting battery config. - Thanks!

Thanks all!
This gives me a lot to chew on. I have a simplistic set up right now and tend to stick with it. No nav instruments or other bells and whistles, but prob will put in a GPS/depth sonde set up in. There is an Aldler refridg. system that I haven't cranked up to check, the compressor/pad looks "shop worn", the evaporator looks new. I am not an ice cube addict and usually just sail without refrigeration. Probably will just clean it up and ignore it or take it out.

Sooo, I think this simple set up will handle my E needs. I will have one small regulated solar panel to keep battery bank bumped up in the near future.
But so far the Trojan (2 6V) bank has handled everything I need for 3 years. It just makes me a tad paranoid to not have a backup battery in case I loose a cell in one of the 6vDC batteries or have something draw down my bank unexpectedly. Well there is always sails....sailed her engineless initially while learning to bang on the A4, but too many pretty boats at my new marina, heavens forbid I scratch up a new Awlgrip job.....

Will study these battery bank versions and yell if I have any questions.
Thanks so much for the support and information, how great is that!

Cheers!

Elizabeth

[b.johnston]

What discouraged you from this re-location?

OK, looks like the batteries shouldn't be located in the same compartment as my gasoline fuel tank...hadn't even thought of that!

Back to the drawing board then.

What discouraged you from this re-location?

C&C's had batteries located both in the 34' (hundreds built) style under the quarter berth and in the engine compartment ala 27's (near a thousand built)

Bruce

I ask, as I have to replace the alternator this spring as it (I guess) was damaged in the P.O event that blew all of the 30+y.o. instruments and gave up the ghost this spring.

My thought is to permanently wire an adjacent starting battery to the alternator and add an ACR to charge the two new house batteries I'll put under the quarter berth (Gel or AGM) replacing the start/house combo I have now.

The start would also get a single alternator disconnect switch as in the blue seas add a battery kit #7650 with the combined pos ONLY FOR "Great Ceasars Ghost" moments.

P.S. already bought a 3 bank 20A ProMariner charger to replace the - one channel dead - xantrex that killed the other start/house via neglect (not charging - only dragging the good one down)

[JonnyQuest]

What discouraged you from this re-location?

C&C's had batteries located both in the 34' (hundreds built) style under the quarter berth and in the engine compartment ala 27's (near a thousand built)

Bruce

Hi Bruce. In my case there were 3 strong reasons passed on by others against moving my batteries back to the lazarette:

1. Gasoline tank and batteries shouldn't be in close proximity. (My tank is in the laz space)
2. Likely would involve very expensive replacement batt cables (due to required gauge for voltage drop over my distances)
3. Prob would adversely affect weight balance of boat (if batts were moved to the rear laz) and thus handling and performance characteristics.

It Might be feasible for a diesel boat but still need to balance the weight distribution and upgrade batt cables for longer runs.

Hope that helps somewhat.

JQ

[joe_db]

I have worked on TONS of boats with batteries near fuel tanks. It would be dangerous if a battery actually got loose and hit a fuel tank, but other than that I am not getting the issue here

[hanleyclifford]

I have worked on TONS of boats with batteries near fuel tanks. It would be dangerous if a battery actually got loose and hit a fuel tank, but other than that I am not getting the issue here

I think the concern is sparks in proximity to fuel vapors. But I have batteries in the same cockpit locker as a fuel tank;however, the batteries are in a wooden box with dedicated overboard vent. I tried using batteries as a trimming tool but found that the long runs made balanced charging difficult and have reverted to the short run approach and now use other items to get best weight distribution.