Batteries❓

[nortada]

Leaving a boat unattended afloat for up to 6 months.

In addition to closing all seacocks, would you-:

Leave the lead acid batteries on trickle charge, connected to a smart Sterling, three stage, battery charger

Or

Switch off the battery master switches and the charger and disconnect the positives on all the batteries to prevent the failure (total discharge) of one battery dragging down the rest of the battery bank

Or any other strategies

 

[jrudge]

No batteries no bilge pumps.

If anything happens it will sink. I would suspect your insurers would say you were not covered

 

[nortada]

No batteries = no bilge pumps.

If anything happens it will sink. I would suspect your insurers would say you were not covered

Thanks but from longtime observation, unattended boats with all sea cocks closed seldom sink.

Ref insurance - from your observation, if left unattended afloat, vessel without automatic bilge pumps, is not insured

When faced with leaving the boat in Portugal unattended afloat, our automatic bilge pump is connected as a a single load on the vital bus bar which is always live, irrespective of the position of the battery isolation switches. The automatic bilge pump is protected by its own circuit breaker. We then isolate all other batteries in the battery bank, leaving just one 108AH battery connected to the vital bus bar.

The automatic bilge pump has a very loud audio warning that will sound off when the bilge pump is running.