Time for new house bank

[dhays]

Another little fly in the ointment....

My plan at the moment is to combine the two banks (thruster and house) into one bank when I have the new house bank in place. As I've fretted about before, it isn't ideal to combine a bank of older Lifeline 255 Ah batteries with a bank of new AGM 6v batteries.

Since the boat was setup with those two separate banks, each bank goes to its own pos buss bar. I can connect those two buss bars with a short 4/0 link cable (tested it and it works just fine). I understand that each bank will likely have slightly different amp draws given differences in the number of connects, chemistry, and age.

Today as I was staring yet again at the DC board in the aft lazarette I hit upon a problem with that setup. I have a Xantrex Linklite battery monitor on the boat. The house bank neg cable goes to the 500A x 50mv ground shunt which the Xantrex Linklite is connected to. This is able to measure all the loads on the house bank. However, if I cross connect the two bank at their positive buss bars, this will not measure the current being supplied by the Thruster bank since its neg cable doesn't connect to the shunt.

So, while simply combining the two banks works, it will leave me blind as far as the amount of current used. I am guessing that if I moved the ground connection from the thruster bank to the shunt (same terminal as the house bank) that it would solve that problem, but that means buying another 4/0 cable for the thruster ground and running it to the shunt. The current cable is not long enough to reach. I could kludge something together and add another short link to make it reach, but that would simply add yet another connection in an already long cable.

Two other solutions. The first would be to actually parallel all the batteries together into one true bank instead of just combining them with a link at the pos buss bars. The downside to this is that it would make it harder to separate the banks in the future. Now it would just be a matter of disconnecting that one link between the two positive bus bars and the the banks are once again completely separate. Another issues is that I'm paralleling different size and ages of batteries. The other issue is that it would mean adding a very long parallel link between the two banks. When all is said and done it would likely be 8' of 4/0. That will have a larger resistance than the other links. However, I found a way to make all the batteries see the same resistance from the links. This solves the Linklite problem because the ground for all the batteries would go to the existing shunt.

The other solution would be to parallel the batteries as above but install a Balmar Smartgauge instead of the Xantrex Linklite. I could then get rid of the shunt and its myriad connections. The downside here is the installation of the Smartgauge. It is easy to wire up, but it would be a real pain to run new wire from the aft lazarette to the PH and cut a new (and large) hole in the PH control station. One thing I don't know how to do is to wire the alarm relay that will cut out the inverter at a given SOC%. The Xantrex is currently wired to do it and I know the Smartgauge can, I just haven't figure out the Xantrex is wired to do that yet.

The more I learn, the more I realize how utterly ignorant I am.

 

[fryedaze]

The Linklite will monitor a second battery voltage. It won't give amp-hrs but you will know the condition of the battery.

 

[ranger58sb]

Another little fly in the ointment....
My plan at the moment is to combine the two banks (thruster and house) into one bank when I have the new house bank in place. As I've fretted about before, it isn't ideal to combine a bank of older Lifeline 255 Ah batteries with a bank of new AGM 6v batteries.

Reviewing: I think you're currently replacing the older ~735 Ah bank (3x 8Ds) with an 800 Ah bank (4x Lifeline L16 AGMs). Your "thruster" bank is a 510 Ah bank (2x Lifeline 8D AGMs), but I think for thrusters the cranking amps rating is likely more important. (?)

What are you trying to solve -- or improve -- with this additional mod?

More amps for thrusters? More amps for house? Both? Or...?

The boat's been good for years in the earlier configuration, yes? Is it worth solving (or improving)?

-Chris

 

[john61ct]

Voltage alone is no indicator of bank health, and only a little better proxy for SoC.

Smartgauge is more accurate than AH-counters and requires no shunt. Most accurate during resting periods, up to 4% off while charging, maybe 2% under load. Highly recommended.

 

[angus99]

Hope this is still on topic: Can Smart Gauge be used as a back-up or supplement to another battery monitor, such as a Magnum BMK?

 

[dhays]

Reviewing: I think you're currently replacing the older ~735 Ah bank (3x 8Ds) with an 800 Ah bank (4x Lifeline L16 AGMs). Your "thruster" bank is a 510 Ah bank (2x Lifeline 8D AGMs), but I think for thrusters the cranking amps rating is likely more important. (?)

What are you trying to solve -- or improve -- with this additional mod?

More amps for thrusters? More amps for house? Both? Or...?

The boat's been good for years in the earlier configuration, yes? Is it worth solving (or improving)?

It is often hard to follow my rambling threads. So to recap, this is what I have now.

Thruster bank: 2 x 8D Lifeline AGM in the stern. These power both thrusters, crane, and windlass. These are an unknown age but based on use and charging, they should be in good shape. They would have had ~510Ah capacity when new.

House Bank: 3 x Leoch 200Ah sealed lead acid batteries. These are the original batteries, almost 7 years old now. For the most part they have been treated well but have experienced a number of deep discharged. When new, they would have given a ~600Ah house bank.

The House bank is tired. I am not able to to a proper load test but they don't have the same capacity for overnight loads as they did a year ago.

I want to accomplish several things.
-Replace those old batteries now before they get worse. I was hoping to get another year out of them but would rather they not fail this summer while on vacation.
-Increase the size of my battery capacity for house loads. This is primarily so that I can reduce depth of discharge and still have plenty of capacity for inverter loads.
-Incorporate the thruster bank into the house bank. I have a 320lbs of battery that essentially does nothing unless I am docking or anchoring. I'd rather use that capacity instead of just have those batteries age out.

So I will replace those old SLA batteries with US Batteries L16 6v AGM. I wish to combine those with the Lifeline 8Ds.

 

[dhays]

Voltage alone is no indicator of bank health, and only a little better proxy for SoC.

Smartgauge is more accurate than AH-counters and requires no shunt. Most accurate during resting periods, up to 4% off while charging, maybe 2% under load. Highly recommended.

I'd really like a Smartgauge and would buy one from Compass Marine in a heartbeat. My only issue is that I'm feeling a bit lazy (when am I not?) and not excited about trying to run the wire from the PH to the aft lazarette and figure out where to cut a bigger hole in the PH dash.

Even as it is, my Xantrex Linklite is providing only a very rough guess on SOC. I know what the Ah capacity of the batteries should have been 7 years ago when new, but no idea now. To get meaningful figures from the Xantrex I have to make a guess as to what the current capacity is. I don't have the equipment (let alone time) to do a proper load test.

I do know that when I bought the boat last year, the Xantrex was set to cut-out the inverter at a 50% SOC. This happened once in the last year, and I have no idea how many times it happened for the PO. I reset the Xantrex to cut-out the inverter at 70% SOC, but what the SOC really is a WAG.

 

[dhays]

Hope this is still on topic: Can Smart Gauge be used as a back-up or supplement to another battery monitor, such as a Magnum BMK?

I don't see why not. The Smartguage connects to the battery terminals themselves. This would mean that all the Smartgauge connections would happen before the BMK connection. The Smargauge does have a very, very tiny current draw that the BMK wouldn't see, but I think it is below what the BMK could measure anyway.

CMS wrote a great article on the Smartgauge that is very helpful. You can find it here

 

[fryedaze]

Voltage alone is no indicator of bank health, and only a little better proxy for SoC.

Smartgauge is more accurate than AH-counters and requires no shunt. Most accurate during resting periods, up to 4% off while charging, maybe 2% under load. Highly recommended.

I read about the Smartgauge. I am skeptical since it only uses a voltage input. Lots of good reviews on it.
Smart Gauge Battery Monitoring Unit Photo Gallery by Compass Marine How To at pbase.com

 

[koliver]

Dave:

I know that I come to this party late, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned.

Do you know whether your present house bank is sized correctly for the loads you have? If so, then when (if) you add your Thruster loads to a combined H/T bank, will you know if it is sized correctly?

I would be tempted, in your shoes, to buy some cables that could be used, should your present House bank fail this year, to combine both H and T loads onto the present T bank while you are away, pending relocating everything to a combined H/T bank. This way, you can wait until the first signs of failure, should that occur this year, next, or later, then scrap both banks and put in a single bank of identical Golf Cart batteries sized for the total loads.

I still buy GCs, as my experience with them remains positive, giving by far the best bang for the buck. My last replacement of House GC was after 10 years, and before failure. My Engine Start is a 4D, recently replaced before failure, at 12 years.

 

[dhays]

Dave:

I know that I come to this party late, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned.

Do you know whether your present house bank is sized correctly for the loads you have? If so, then when (if) you add your Thruster loads to a combined H/T bank, will you know if it is sized correctly?

I would be tempted, in your shoes, to buy some cables that could be used, should your present House bank fail this year, to combine both H and T loads onto the present T bank while you are away, pending relocating everything to a combined H/T bank. This way, you can wait until the first signs of failure, should that occur this year, next, or later, then scrap both banks and put in a single bank of identical Golf Cart batteries sized for the total loads.

I still buy GCs, as my experience with them remains positive, giving by far the best bang for the buck. My last replacement of House GC was after 10 years, and before failure. My Engine Start is a 4D, recently replaced before failure, at 12 years.

Good suggestion Keith.

The thruster bank seems to be sized correctly for the demands. Primarily those are CCA demands. That is just a lot of battery capacity that is going unused most of the time. Hence the desire to combine that and the house bank.

I already have purchased the AGM L16s, just waiting for delivery. Just replacing the old SLA batteries with those will increase my house bank capacity and I could (and may) just continue on with a separate house and thruster bank.

I normally would do as you did, and go with GC2 wet cells. However, the difficulty of access and an enclosed space turned me away from them. I agree that they are great value. With tax and core cost, I could buy GC2 batteries for $95. That is only $0.90 per Ah. The AGMs I got will cost me $1.73/Ah so double the cost and I don't think they will last any longer than the GC2 wet cells would.

 

[ranger58sb]

I want to accomplish several things.
-Replace those old batteries now before they get worse. I was hoping to get another year out of them but would rather they not fail this summer while on vacation.
-Increase the size of my battery capacity for house loads. This is primarily so that I can reduce depth of discharge and still have plenty of capacity for inverter loads.
-Incorporate the thruster bank into the house bank. I have a 320lbs of battery that essentially does nothing unless I am docking or anchoring. I'd rather use that capacity instead of just have those batteries age out.

So I will replace those old SLA batteries with US Batteries L16 6v AGM. I wish to combine those with the Lifeline 8Ds.

The thruster bank seems to be sized correctly for the demands. Primarily those are CCA demands. That is just a lot of battery capacity that is going unused most of the time. Hence the desire to combine that and the house bank.

I already have purchased the AGM L16s, just waiting for delivery. Just replacing the old SLA batteries with those will increase my house bank capacity and I could (and may) just continue on with a separate house and thruster bank.

Replace tired house batteries before they let you down: Check, 4x L16s

Increase house battery bank capacity: Check, 33% increase with L16s.

Combine "thruster" (bow, stern, windlass, crane) bank -- which appears to be correctly chosen (CCAs) for the loads -- with house bank: Yes, some capacity going unused.

OTOH, there when you need it, no matter the state of your other banks.

So that "thruster" bank ages at a different rate compared to your new L16 bank; is that a big deal? If you've increased your house bank capacity by 33% already, relatively painlessly (except for that wallet thing), will increasing it even more be a big improvement? An actually-needed improvement?

Does the "thruster bank" form factor contribute to an easy combination of like age/chemistry/capacity/etc. with your currently-inbound L16s? If so, does it happen you could also immediately replace the 2x 8Ds with some more L16s? (I think 6 might fit where 2 8Ds fit?) If you do that, you'd end up with 10 L16s for a combined thruster/house bank... maybe not bad, but do you really need a 2000 Ah bank? (Assuming I did the math right.) Will your charger(s) handle a 2000 Ah bank?

And so forth.

Just thinking out loud, actually, not suggesting a recommendation...

But maybe "doing nothing" (more) could turn out to be a reasonable answer?

-Chris

 

[Art]

OMG - This thread's electrical vernacular has "bolted" out of hand! Some of the deep confabs here give me a "jolt"! Just kidding!!


In actuality... for thrift as well as hassle free boat-play... I play KISS ad nauseam regarding most boat items, including AC and DC electric systems. However, it is a pleasure to follow in-depth chatter from you guys. I am listening and learning [well at least trying to learn anyway].


One thing I have learned is that I am going to pay a really good marine electrician to suss out our 1977 Tolly and provide recommendations that could bring our beloved old boatie into the 21st Century.


I'm not in a big rush to do this but it is on my list to accomplish.


Once I've done this and if/how I decide to improve our boat's electrical system I will take notes and photos so I can add something of depth here.


Thanks again guys! Keep up the good high amp posts!!

 

[john61ct]

I read about the Smartgauge. I am skeptical since it only uses a voltage input. Lots of good reviews on it.
Smart Gauge Battery Monitoring Unit Photo Gallery by Compass Marine How To at pbase.com

Lots of skeptics proven wrong. Not just voltage, proprietary algorithms, but apparently includes AC impedance spectrography.

 

[FlyWright]

I read about the Smartgauge. I am skeptical since it only uses a voltage input. Lots of good reviews on it.
Smart Gauge Battery Monitoring Unit Photo Gallery by Compass Marine How To at pbase.com

We had quite a thread on the Balmar SmartGuage a few years back. Codger had one installed in his IG32 rust bucket of a boat to supplement his Victron SOC Monitor. It was a sweet installation.

Personally, I think that's a great combo to get the most accurate picture of your bank SOC (Balmar) and current and cummulative loads (Victron or LinkPro). Here's a link...

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s4/balmar-smart-gauge-19727.html

Replace tired house batteries before they let you down: Check, 4x L16s

Increase house battery bank capacity: Check, 33% increase with L16s.

Combine "thruster" (bow, stern, windlass, crane) bank -- which appears to be correctly chosen (CCAs) for the loads -- with house bank: Yes, some capacity going unused.

OTOH, there when you need it, no matter the state of your other banks.

So that "thruster" bank ages at a different rate compared to your new L16 bank; is that a big deal? If you've increased your house bank capacity by 33% already, relatively painlessly (except for that wallet thing), will increasing it even more be a big improvement? An actually-needed improvement?

Does the "thruster bank" form factor contribute to an easy combination of like age/chemistry/capacity/etc. with your currently-inbound L16s? If so, does it happen you could also immediately replace the 2x 8Ds with some more L16s? (I think 6 might fit where 2 8Ds fit?) If you do that, you'd end up with 10 L16s for a combined thruster/house bank... maybe not bad, but do you really need a 2000 Ah bank? (Assuming I did the math right.) Will your charger(s) handle a 2000 Ah bank?

And so forth.

Just thinking out loud, actually, not suggesting a recommendation...

But maybe "doing nothing" (more) could turn out to be a reasonable answer?

-Chris

That summary helps a lot with grasping the big picture here.

Dr. Hays, have you considered just leaving the T bank as is and just adding a paralleling switch to the house bank? This gives you the ability to use the excess battery juice for house loads if you need it with a simple flick of the switch. Normally, I would envision this switch being OFF so both banks live independent lives until the need arises on anchor.

I would imagine that tying these banks together occasionally would tend to wreak havoc on the SOC meter's accuracy and the Balmar's learning logic.

 

[dhays]

So that "thruster" bank ages at a different rate compared to your new L16 bank; is that a big deal? If you've increased your house bank capacity by 33% already, relatively painlessly (except for that wallet thing), will increasing it even more be a big improvement? An actually-needed improvement?

Does the "thruster bank" form factor contribute to an easy combination of like age/chemistry/capacity/etc. with your currently-inbound L16s? If so, does it happen you could also immediately replace the 2x 8Ds with some more L16s? (I think 6 might fit where 2 8Ds fit?) If you do that, you'd end up with 10 L16s for a combined thruster/house bank... maybe not bad, but do you really need a 2000 Ah bank? (Assuming I did the math right.) Will your charger(s) handle a 2000 Ah bank?

And so forth.

Just thinking out loud, actually, not suggesting a recommendation...

But maybe "doing nothing" (more) could turn out to be a reasonable answer?

All good thought Chris and those are the same questions that I have been tossing around in my head myself. If the Lifelines weren't still doing well, I would replace them with 4 L16s and definitely combine the two banks. That would give me 1560 Ah total instead of the original 600 + 500. Plenty of capacity. Your question as to whether my charger could support that, well not really. My charger will put out 125 amps of charge current. US Batteries wants their AGMs to be bulk charged at 10% of C20. That would be 156 amps. Lifeline doesn't seem to really care how much but can take a lot more. So my charger is a bit undersized for that large a bank. However, it is sized OK for the 1280 Ah of combining the current thruster bank with the new house bank.

 

[john61ct]

​Lifeline recommends a .2C charge rate as a*bare minimum, is happier for longevity with .4+, and can easily take double that, even 5C without harm for short periods.

 

[dhays]

​Lifeline recommends a .2C charge rate as a*bare minimum, is happier for longevity with .4+, and can easily take double that, even 5C without harm for short periods.

You know a lot more about this stuff than I do John, but I was looking a lot at this the other day. The Lifeline owners manual doesn't say anything about charge rate. It does talk about appropriate voltages. The Lifeline tech manual doesn't talk about the charge rate either until the end of the charging section (section 5.4). There it says that for batteries that are discharge deeper than 50% DOD that the charger should be able to charge it at .2C and if the charger can't do it, then the battery life may be shortened. It is pretty clear that this minimum is for DOD of greater than 50%. Otherwise, it makes no recommendations on charge rate.

 

[john61ct]

Call their tech support, ask for Dave V, their lead engineer. Let me know if things have changed.

Also I took a lot of quotes in my knowledge base from Maine Sail's notes on his extensive and well-documented experience, I'm sure a bit of googling will turn them up.

 

[cardude01]

FYI, FWIW, I've had a Balmar Smartguage for a couple of years and it seems to work well.

 

[FlyWright]

Call their tech support, ask for Dave V, their lead engineer. Let me know if things have changed.

Also I took a lot of quotes in my knowledge base from Maine Sail's notes on his extensive and well-documented experience, I'm sure a bit of googling will turn them up.

What are your credentials and knowledge base? Many here trust experts like CMS and many others, but your background is a mystery. No insult intended at all...and please don't take it as such...but anyone can post online with anonymous and uncredentialed authority. It means much more if you identify yourself and your experience.

FYI, FWIW, I've had a Balmar Smartguage for a couple of years and it seems to work well.

Great feedback! Thanks, CD. Codger sold his boat before we got much of a history. Blue, do you still have yours?

 

[dhays]

Dr. Hays, have you considered just leaving the T bank as is and just adding a paralleling switch to the house bank? This gives you the ability to use the excess battery juice for house loads if you need it with a simple flick of the switch. Normally, I would envision this switch being OFF so both banks live independent lives until the need arises on anchor.

I would imagine that tying these banks together occasionally would tend to wreak havoc on the SOC meter's accuracy and the Balmar's learning logic.

I have considered that. It would be the easiest solution (although finding space on the DC board in the aft lazarette would be challenging). I like the idea because it would be much simpler than rerouting a bunch of 4/0 cables. It also means that the two banks would be easy to separate as well in the event of a problem.

It does make the amp counter worthless as soon as the banks are combined. The other concern is that say my house bank was getting to a lower SOC and I wanted to increase my available capacity, If I combined the two banks then there would be a signficant voltage difference. I'm not sure how the batteries would react to that? In a way, I was thinking that I would keep the banks combined, but only disconnect them when the total SOC was at a level that I didn't want the thruster bank to drop below. This would get back to John's suggestion of a low voltage cut-out.

Anyway, just combining them is something I would do if it weren't for it making it impossible to judge SOC. However, I will look to see if it would be possible to move the negative cable for the thruster bank to the shunt that the house bank is connected to. I'm thinking that would allow the Linklite to measure total amps from the combined system.

The other thing I don't know is if two unequal banks are combined in that way, will one bank do more work than the other?

 

[Insequent]

An expert can correct me if need be , but...

If you connect two banks at different SOC (and voltage) the bank with the higher voltage will charge the other bank, and discharge itself, until the voltage of both banks are equal. I would not see the point of doing that.

Perhaps install a "1-2-both" battery switch, with house loads taken off the common terminal. Normally run from 1 (house bank) but run from 2 (T bank) when you wish. If both banks are fully charged and at the same voltage then run house loads from both.

 

[john61ct]

If I combined the two banks then there would be a signficant voltage difference. I'm not sure how the batteries would react to that?
....
The other thing I don't know is if two unequal banks are combined in that way, will one bank do more work than the other?

A couple links from Gibbo's HowTo pages, sorry if I already pointed to the first one.

http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html

​http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/nosurge2.html

Anyway, just combining them is something I would do if it weren't for it making it impossible to judge SOC.

Yes the monitoring issue with a "semi-split" bank is an interesting challenge.

A coulomb-counting monitor should be less of a problem as long as the shunt is placed correctly and you're looking at absolute AH values rather than percentages.

With SmartGauge, as long as the isolation state was only an occasional short-term exception event, it will return to being accurate within a couple cycles.

 

[ranger58sb]

What are your credentials and knowledge base? Many here trust experts like CMS and many others, but your background is a mystery.

FWIW, note that John references MaineSail (cruisersforum moniker)... who posts here as CMS.

-Chris

 

[ranger58sb]

It does make the amp counter worthless as soon as the banks are combined.

The other concern is that say my house bank was getting to a lower SOC and I wanted to increase my available capacity,

The other thing I don't know is if two unequal banks are combined in that way, will one bank do more work than the other?

I think the two unequal banks would tend to gravitate toward a single "average" -- new bank downward, since the old bank ain't gonna get perkier -- but I don't know that for sure.

Another FWIW, we've found we don' need no steenkin' smart gauge on our boat.

Reason is because we charge 2x/day when we're at anchor anyway... if we haven't been running the genset all day for the ACs , anyway (rarely)... so we don't usually deplete our battery banks enough to make SOC anything to worry much about. And that's with approx. less than half of your house bank capacity. The simple volt meters -- sure, not great -- are enough, in our case.

Our DC budgets could be widely different, of course...

-Chris

 

[dhays]

A couple links from Gibbo's HowTo pages, sorry if I already pointed to the first one.

SmartGauge Electronics - Interconnecting multiple batteries to form one larger bank

​SmartGauge Electronics - High current surges?

Thanks John,

That second link I've not seen and it does a great job of explaining the surge issue (non-issue). Reminds me of Peggy's signature line here on TF.

The first link is one that I've seen before. I found it very helpful in the past when I was redoing the battery bank of my sailboat. It explains not only the reasons for proper wiring of a parallel battery bank, but gives some actual numbers to support it. I was looking at it just recent as I was coming up with an idea for combining my thruster and house bank.

The first diagram is what I'll start out with. The two banks will be separate. Then if I decide to parallel them, I will make a couple changes in the links of the L16s, add the long links and will have in essence the layout that is described in Method 4 on that first link you gave. While the diagram isn't to scale, the short parallel links should be the same length and the two long parallel links I will make the same length.

 

[dhays]

Well, today I was down at the boat working on some other things and decided that it was time to get started on changing the batteries.

I was replacing the house bank and it would not be a quick swap. I still wanted to be able to use the boat so I changed the wiring for the thruster bank so it will feed the house as well as the thrusters. I will have a temporary 500Ah bank to cover both until the new batteries are installed.

The next step was to extricate the 3 4D batteries that are tucked in the aft lazaret. I had told everyone that I would wait to get some help, but my son-in-law was working and is busy this weekend, so I decided to do it solo.

The batteries are really hard to get to. They are in boxes that are separated and secured by 1x2s screwed into the floor. I figured I would remove those dividers first to make it easy. Well, couldn't really get them out with the batteries there. I also wasn't able to lift the batteries over the the dividers given their location.

I finally rigged up a tackle, attached it to the top of the metal steps to the flybridge with a soft shackle and the other end to the end handle on the battery. With the tackle I was able to lift one end of the battery just enough that I was able to lift the box over the edge of the divider and slide it out.

The next problem was getting it out of the lazaret. I ended up using the crane and a harness. The cockpit is covered but with some leverage I was able to get the crane to lift it out of the lazarett, out the back transom door, and then swing it over the dock and set it down on a 4 wheel dolly. The tide was high by this time so I carefully towed the dolly to the ramp, wrestled it up the ramp, and then to my SUV.

The hardest part of lifting the battery straight up and into the back of my SUV. I got luck in that a guy was there when I needed to lift into the back of the SUV for battery number 2.

I am so glad that part is done. Tomorrow I will tackle those dividers. I need to remove them, cut some of them, and then reinstall in a slightly different configuration for the new L16 battery boxes.

 

[Insequent]

By now I'm sure you are glad you ignored the advice to 'just replace the 8D's like for like'!

 

[Art]

Hey Dave,

Wish I could be there to assist!

Should your new handle become BattMan??!!

Maybe you could rent a BattMan cape from Halloween party store and do a video... named "Batts in the Boatfree". Might go viral!

After this run of batt mania you can feel pretty secure that you'll have years of batt-full and no-batt-lift enjoyment ahead on your pretty boat.


Cheers!!


Art