[C320-list] Start Battery

[Mark Cole]

Hello!

I’m new to the group and this is my first post.  My wife and I just bought a 1993 320, hull #8, and enjoyed sailing her this summer, but now it is time to tackle a few upgrades.

Has anyone added a start battery to their boat?  I currently have two 4D house batteries but no dedicated start battery.  We want to spend about half of our cruising time on the hook so I would feel a lot better with a start battery. The boat has a relatively new Xantrex charger that will handle 3 separate batteries so I think I’m good there.  The engine (Perkins M30) fires right up if I’m still plugged into shore power and the charger is on, but takes a long time to start and turns over slowly if starting from the batteries.  The 4Ds are a few years old and I’m about to go through an equalization process with them, so maybe that will help…  Any suggestions on the installation?

Thanks for any info!

Mark Cole
Fiddler’s Green
Tacoma, WA