Battery life expectations ?

[Lisa&Paul]

Hi as new owners of a Beneteau Antares 30 fly , 10 years old and 500 hours and currently 2,500 miles away from her until June we are feeling our feet and doing the usual research, research, research ,
Having bent the ears quite profusely of the previous one owners from new and the broker we wondered if a more unbiased and maybe accurate opinion of boat batteries would be beneficial …….

Ok enough waffle , we presume the batteries are the originals ( will confirm that with another email lol ) and are as stated 10 years old and were informed that when the boat was kept at berth she was kept on shore power . The previous owners only used her for daytime fishing trips , mainly at the weekend . This is backed up by the fact the plastic covers on the mattresses are still in place , the microwave still has instruction manual and packaging inside and the cooker , fridge are as new . It still has the original 3.9kg propane gas bottle ! Which fired up the cooker /grill etc on our 2nd inspection .

Being a touch paranoid about being out at sea with flat batteries any help / advice or test we can do to ascertain all the boat battery conditions and life expectancy would be appreciated . Not a qualified lecky person btw but know how to wire a plug and change a fuse

Popeye and Olive

 

[Refueler]

My personal observations :

I'm not the best at maintaining my on-board batterys ... actually its the handyman who keeps unplugging my pontoon power to run garden stuff - forgets to reconnect !! What kills mine - is the winter temps dropping to -20C or lower and if battery is not full charged - it suffers.
But even so - my standard car batterys of 80 - 90 A/hr last at least 5 years. If I was to use the boat more often and have my batterys better maintained ... then I would expect significantly better.
I have had 8yrs even with my haphazard use.
(My Volvo car has a battery in it 12yrs old and still works fine..... but worst that can do is fail on the road !! Not at Sea ...)

Your batterys are 10years ... they could be good or on last legs - they can be load tested to give an idea.
At 10 years ... its a case of how you feel - can you trust them or not ? I know you have another question on the forum about systems setup .... but I'm wondering if the old can be relegated to domestic use and the more important engine start can have new battery (s) ?

 

[James L]

Hi as new owners of a Beneteau Antares 30 fly , 10 years old and 500 hours and currently 2,500 miles away from her until June we are feeling our feet and doing the usual research, research, research ,
Having bent the ears quite profusely of the previous one owners from new and the broker we wondered if a more unbiased and maybe accurate opinion of boat batteries would be beneficial …….

Ok enough waffle , we presume the batteries are the originals ( will confirm that with another email lol ) and are as stated 10 years old and were informed that when the boat was kept at berth she was kept on shore power . The previous owners only used her for daytime fishing trips , mainly at the weekend . This is backed up by the fact the plastic covers on the mattresses are still in place , the microwave still has instruction manual and packaging inside and the cooker , fridge are as new . It still has the original 3.9kg propane gas bottle ! Which fired up the cooker /grill etc on our 2nd inspection .

Being a touch paranoid about being out at sea with flat batteries any help / advice or test we can do to ascertain all the boat battery conditions and life expectancy would be appreciated . Not a qualified lecky person btw but know how to wire a plug and change a fuse

Popeye and Olive

Quite likely they are fried, will really depend on the charger etc used.
But not something I'd worry about until June, when you get there disconnect the power or ask someone to do it for you a few days in advance, if everything starts up 2 or 3 times in a row they're fine, if not, head down to the nearest car parts store and buy a new one.

I replaced a 10 year old starter battery last year only to find that the battery is still fine (still started a 3 liter diesel having been abandoned in my garage for a year, probably 18 months without any charging). Turns out I had a poor connection to it.

 

[BruceK]

Batteries are a maintenance replaceable item. The manufactures give an expected use cycle lifetime which can be as low as 250 to 500. Most are designed to last around the 4 year mark (warranty period) easy going being used twice a day and kept in optimum environmental conditions. So about 3000 cycles. Huge discrepancy. So here is the crunch, everything depends on their history. Personally I'd accept they are just due for replacement, because unless you have the correct battery capacity monitoring equipment, it will cost you to find out in what is otherwise, relatively, a low cost item.

 

[BruceK]

That's starter batteries btw. House batteries is another issue

 

[Skylark]

My boat is now in its 7th season and the 4 x 110 Ahr service battery bank is showing signs of age. After a fair amount of background reading I've concluded that buying and fitting a Battery Monitor (I've bought a Victron BMV712 but others are available) is a good thing to do and should give real-time information on capacity.

 

[simonfraser]

thread drift for sure, but the batteries are the easy bit, just replace them if they are done.
if that was all that was wrong with the boat i bought a couple of years ago i would be delighted.
all sorts of other important bits to consider, post a thread on this forum

 

[julians]

Hi as new owners of a Beneteau Antares 30 fly , 10 years old and 500 hours and currently 2,500 miles away from her until June we are feeling our feet and doing the usual research, research, research ,
Having bent the ears quite profusely of the previous one owners from new and the broker we wondered if a more unbiased and maybe accurate opinion of boat batteries would be beneficial …….

Ok enough waffle , we presume the batteries are the originals ( will confirm that with another email lol ) and are as stated 10 years old and were informed that when the boat was kept at berth she was kept on shore power . The previous owners only used her for daytime fishing trips , mainly at the weekend . This is backed up by the fact the plastic covers on the mattresses are still in place , the microwave still has instruction manual and packaging inside and the cooker , fridge are as new . It still has the original 3.9kg propane gas bottle ! Which fired up the cooker /grill etc on our 2nd inspection .

Being a touch paranoid about being out at sea with flat batteries any help / advice or test we can do to ascertain all the boat battery conditions and life expectancy would be appreciated . Not a qualified lecky person btw but know how to wire a plug and change a fuse

Popeye and Olive

I tend to get about 4 - 5years out of my batteries, so if I'd just bought your boat I'd be changing the batteries as a matter of course

 

[Plum]

The last two batteries I replaced were 8 years although still started the engine just fine, just that they would not hold at 12.7v for more than a week. I currently have two at 10 years that will hold 12.7v for over 3 weeks. All the above were/are wet lead-acid starter batteries.

www.solocoastalsailing.co.uk

 

[Beamishken]

That's starter batteries btw. House batteries is another issue

Presumably you have 2 engines with 1 battery each & likely an emergency start button to link them in the case of one going flat? If thats the case even if they are on their last legs your very unlikely to get stuck with both batteries flat. Personally I'd accept they may be on their last legs but run them till at least one fails then replace both. Assuming you have the emergency start link button or even jump leads you'll always get home. And in any case they are far more likely to fail if not used for a few weeks than if they have just had a run earlier in the day

 

[baldyash]

I replaced my Antares 30 batteries at 8.5 years as they were getting slow to turn over the engine. Better safe than sorry

 

[Lisa&Paul]

Hi , thanks to all for useful comments and advice , just heard back from the previous owner that all the batteries were replaced 18 months ago

Popeye and G gosh Olive

 

[Pinnacle]

Hi , thanks to all for useful comments and advice , just heard back from the previous owner that all the batteries were replaced 18 months ago

Popeye and G gosh Olive

Result!

 

[Assassin]

Just check the receipts and the warranty period as any remaining warranty is a bonus and a little security.