Battery recomendation

[oldfielder]

Unless you are in a bind, never leave it turned to both. One battery will always sap the other until you basically have one big cell at the same level of discharge and your worst case scenario is that you wind up with up with two dead ones, especially if you are on a long, lazy fluke drift out in the ocean on a nice summer afternoon.
Get a starter and a deep cycle and dedicate the starter to the motor and the deep cycle to your electronics, etc. They are very different batteries designed for difft. purposes. I invested in a combiner/isolater a few years ago and it gives me a lot of piece of mind for the $100 I spent on it. I now basically leave the battery switch turned to 1(starter) all the time when running, but the house battery also reaps the benefits of being charged. Talk to the guy down there about it. It's a very easy thing to wire up on your own.
We'll have to tip a few down there some time.

[Fr. Frank]

You need an isolater/combiner, and two group 24 or 27 batteries. I use WalMart batteries, and one of my batteries is now 5, yes, five, years old, and test just fine.

[abl1111]

DAMN ! I like the idea ! I have never had a problem in the past, but I like the idea of a combiner / isolator... Makes a lot of sense...

I guess I would hook all my peripherals up to the deep cell and just the starter up to the starter battery...

How do you adjust how much charge goes to the deep cell ?

And, in a bind - can a deep cell start a boat ?

[Fr. Frank]

DAMN ! I like the idea ! I have never had a problem in the past, but I like the idea of a combiner / isolator... Makes a lot of sense...

I guess I would hook all my peripherals up to the deep cell and just the starter up to the starter battery...

How do you adjust how much charge goes to the deep cell ?

It's automatic

And, in a bind - can a deep cell start a boat ?

Yes. As long as you've got the CCA rating you need. Not a problem for o/b motors.