EP 36 New House Batteries for the Sailboat

Hello and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast. This is our podcast about sailing and cruising the East coast of the United States. In some episodes we will focus on passages and destinations, in other episodes, we will talk about boats, equipment, and techniques, and when we come across an interesting person, we will try to get them as a guest on the show. Today we’re going to talk about replacing the house batteries on Paradox, our 2009 Hunter 45DS. During the survey we had done in the Fall of 2020, when we purchased Paradox, the surveyor indicated that the lead-acid batteries on the boat were at about 50% of their rated capacity. During the early part of this sailing season, I noticed the batteries were almost depleted after a full day of sailing. So, it is time to replace the house batteries. We discuss why I decided to stay with lead-acid wet cell batteries and not “upgrade” to Gel or Lithium-Ion batteries. Thanks for listening! We will be spending most of the summer sailing around Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, and Buzzards Bay. Hope to see you out on the water. We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at sailingtheeast@gmail.com. Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas. Bela and Mike