Beneteau Oceanis 361 electricity layout - Please help

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cmedsailor

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I recently bought a Beneteau 361 and still trying to understand the electricity/battery layout. The boat has 3 batteries (I believe the 3rd is connected to battery 2) and three switches; “General”, “batt.1” and “batt.2”. It also has a battery charger (for 240V).
When I am at the marina and charging the batteries and I don’t need to use anything on the boat (eg the fridge) I have all switches off.
It looks like that all batteries are connected together (parallel) but if you switch off batt.1 then you cannot start the engine. So, if I am in the boat and use the services without the need to start the engine, or if I am sailing then I can have the batt.1 switch off and batt.2 switch on. If the engine is on then both switches are on.
Is this correct? And what about the switch “general”? Does it always has to be on?
 
Standard Beneteau layout...

The general switch is an isolator... ie it disconnects all the batteries from the boat side... batt 1 is the engine specific isolator, and batt 2 is the domestics isolator...

So... to start the engine you need general and batt 1 on, and for domestic use you need general and batt 2 on....

NEVER switch off batt 1 while the engine is running (you'll damage your alternator)

While sailing without engine running, turn batt 1 off and just have general and batt 2 on, and then you are running your domestics off the domestics battery and protecting your engine start battery from discharge..... in emergencies you can use both batt 1 and batt 2 to either start the engine or run your domestics by having both switches in the on position
 
My layout must be a little different to yours. I can start the engine with battery 1, or 2, or both, of course. It is perfectly safe to turn off the cranking battery, once the engine as started, as the alternator output is still charging the house batteries. In fact, it is my normal routine to turn the cranker off straight away, as I tend to forget later on and could easily end up with a flattie. As long as both batteries are never isolated at the same time, whilst the engine is running, all is ok.
 
Congratulations on buying a great boat!

Do you have the Owners Manual? If so, take a look at Page 20 and all will be revealed.

General is a common negative. Although there is a Bat 1 and Bat 2 they are connected together.

The third battery option is usually simply connected to Bat 2.
 
on the 400 the engine battery is just in front of the engine and hidden behind the companionway steps, while the domestics are under the starboard rear berths.... but I guess the 261 may well be different.

The switches are all on the front of the starboard berth and very heavy guage wire runs back and for the short distances involved.
 
the 361 is basically the same as my 351, i emailed bene for a wiring diag, it is just a line diag and is not very specific, the general switch is the COMMON negative and the other 2 are the positives for the domestic and start systems respectively.
the 4 stage mains battery charger that is fitted as an extra, charges BOTH banks of batteries when the boat is connected to the mains. The connection by passes the isolator switches so that the batteries are charged on mains, without either of them being switched on.
i suspect that the reason you cannot start on one position is that you are getting confused by the switches. Make sure that you have the general one on and switch between banks using the other ones to choose which bank you want to use, OR there could be a prob with the start bank battery.
The third battery will be paralleled with the domestic bank so dont worry about trying to find a combination to switch between 3 batteries, you have in effect 2 batteries only with the paralleled ones being in essence one large one
Stu
 
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