Batteries for 2004 Bavaria 32

[andrewj3]

I have a 2004 Bavaria 32 and it has two 140 Ah batteries and a smaller 55Ah battery. I am wondering if this is the standard configuration as the weight of these batteries causes a list to starbord of a few degrees. The boat has a anchor windlass. Does the boat need this amount of battery and can one be removed without affecting the electrical requirements? There is also an inverter mounted in the forward cabin that I am not sure if it works or not so any help with this would be appreciated.

[tiger79]

The Magnum Energy unit you've illustrated is actually an inverter/charger, so you need to work out whether this is charging your batteries, or whether it's connected to something else.

Having two 140Ah batteries would be considered a minimum by many owners, so I wouldn't think it's a good idea to remove one of them.

[symphony2]

Your house battery capacity depends on you type of use and energy consumption. Removing one halves your ultimate capacity and the effective capacity of a good 140Ah battery is 70Ah without hammering it and having a short life. If you spend nights away from shorepower and sail during the day using autopilot and you run your fridge your daily 12v usage will probably exceed that. The fridge is the biggest single consumer and will use over half your available capacity. An inverter is even more hungry for 12v power. You could offset some of this with solar but on a smallish boat like yours there is not enough room to fit much solar capacity.

Long winded way of saying that if you want to independent of shorepower then your current battery capacity is appropriate. My more recent 33 had 3*95Ah which was fine for local cruising.

[diverphil]

on our 33 the 2x140 house battery's are on the port side and starter battery on starboard, having them on that side helps to balance out the weight in the locker, we can get a weekend out of them but as symphony2 said the fridge drains quite a lot out of them,  if you said 5 amp for 12hrs (running time at 50%) for a 24hr day would take 60ah, add on the other stuff and it soon runs out.