Battery replacement on Sailfish 282

[Fishing_Mazatlan]

Hello Grady Owners!

The batteries on my 282 Sailfish are about 4 or 5 years old as reported by previous owner and I plan to replace them. I will stay with lead-acid or AGM batteries. The current setup has 4 batteries in 2 banks of 2 wired in parallel. The 282 manual shows that bank 1 is a 2 battery bank that runs the house DC items and starts th starboard engine. Bank 2 was originally a single battery that starts the port engine.

Is there any reason to maintain a 4 battery setup? Are there significant advantages to 4 batteries over 3?

Thanks for suggestions!

 

[SkunkBoat]

Your switches can make Bank 2 run the stbd & house and bank 1 run the port motor.
Assuming it is still wired the way the manual shows. Don't assume anything, trace it out and understand what you have.
Some people(like me) have changed the config to have a separate two battery House and two Start batteries.

The question is do you run a lot of stuff that may run down the House while motors are off?

 

[DennisG01]

No, there's really no reason to have 2 batteries starting the port engine (if that's all it's doing). But, as noted above, the first thing to do is to go and figure out where all the wiring is going. Make a diagram, maybe? Once you have that, answers will become easier.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

I bought my boat back in October of 2021 and the boat had batteries in there that were of an unknown age. The battery date stickers on the top were missing, one had a "3" on it but I'm not sure what that meant. Anyway, I was pulling in the boat for the season off my mooring buoy when the boat wouldn't start. They were/are Group 24 batteries, of which there are two of them, and they are both starting/cranking batteries. I called up my local Grady White dealership, explained the situation and their recommendation was to just replace what my current setup with the exact same thing. So, I went to Interstate and bought two Interstate 24M-XHD batteries, wired them up in the same fashion and voila. As SkunkBoat said, don't rely on the owner's manual, as someone could've replaced or changed up something in the 24 years since the boat was initially produced. I'd figure out what you've got and honestly if everything works just fine right now, just replace everything with the same thing you already have.

 

[Fishtales]

Hello Grady Owners!

The batteries on my 282 Sailfish are about 4 or 5 years old as reported by previous owner and I plan to replace them. I will stay with lead-acid or AGM batteries. The current setup has 4 batteries in 2 banks of 2 wired in parallel. The 282 manual shows that bank 1 is a 2 battery bank that runs the house DC items and starts th starboard engine. Bank 2 was originally a single battery that starts the port engine.

Is there any reason to maintain a 4 battery setup? Are there significant advantages to 4 batteries over 3?

Thanks for suggestions!

I'd keep it stock and install (4) Group 27 batteries. Stagger them so you do one set every or every other year.

 

[Fishing_Mazatlan]

All solid advice and suggestions so far. Thank you.

Tracing electrical circuits is not my strong point.

 

[Fixit]

I really dislike Gradys idea of a shared house and starting battery. IMO each engine should have its own start battery, and the house should be separate.

 

[Sardinia306Canyon]

Tracing electrical circuits is not my strong point.

Then don't change anything and just replace the batteries with same size AGM.
My 306 Canyon had 3 batteries, stbd+house together and port engine alone but that bothered me so i changed it to
stbd (AGM) House (LiFePo) port (AGM).
I am used to work on boats so it was not that complicated, but as previous owners made a cable mess it took me more than expected to finish the install and i don't suggest to do that for people who do not understand boat electrics.
Chris

 

[DennisG01]

Whether you go LA or AGM is your call once you factor in pros/cons/price.

But I agree with Chris - if you're generally happy with how things work, then keep it simple and just replace without messing with wiring. Unless you're going to hire someone, the last thing you want to do is start messing with wiring, make a mistake and end up creating a very expensive mistake

 

[Late Again Grady]

Your switches can make Bank 2 run the stbd & house and bank 1 run the port motor.
Assuming it is still wired the way the manual shows. Don't assume anything, trace it out and understand what you have.
Some people(like me) have changed the config to have a separate two battery House and two Start batteries.

The question is do you run a lot of stuff that may run down the House while motors are off?

I have this exact setup in mine. Two house batteries and two starter batteries.