Boat Blog: New batteries – hurrah!

Wednesday 10th April

The debate about which battery to buy went to the wire…..

Elecsol: ruled out for being expensive, for having too many accounts of problems, and for the accounts of people’s experiences with the Elecsol guarantee. Talking to battery wholesaler, Tanya, they said that they look after warranty claims on all batteries apart from Elecsol ,which was a bit worrying.

Enduroline: Tanya’s own brand batteries – but they could not point me to a manufacturer’s datasheet

Numax 110: stunningly cheap as Tanya sell so many and have few warranty issues

After talking to Tanya I was very tempted by the Enduroline, but their 135 AH battery is quite pricey…

Of course, the batteries themselves were only part of the problem – if I did a self-install (including de-rusting and painting the battery tray) it would be a 2-day job which would take out a weekend’s cruising, hence the decision to give it to P&S Marine just below Cassiobury Lock (contact telephone numbers: 07885 722444 or 07768 514800 ).

Now they were very good and went through a myriad of battery options for me – we finally agreed on batteries from their local wholesaler, Denka, for an amazingly cheap price (£58 + VAT). They’re not as flash as the Enduroline, not as well-known as the Numax, but the guys at P&S Marine spoke well of them and I trusted their judgement.

We were actually impressed with the guys at P&S – good service, a very neat welding job at the front and the battery tray properly cleaned and painted despite awkward access.

I obviously can’t tell Sue, but they had a quiet word with me about her boat handling – they’d been ready to grab ropes, throw ropes, jump up and down shouting directions and instead Sue just turned the boat in its length and slotted the boat neatly into place. There probably was an unspoken challenge there, can you match that getting the boat out? I would happily recommend the guys at P&S Marine, in turn they have agreed not to tell anyone about Sue’s boat handling 🙂