Must... have.... more.... power!!!!

(Apologies to William Shatner)

Puddleduck's electrical system is in need of help. There were three batteries aboard when I bought her. The one on the far left is a West Marine 75AH deep cycle gell-cell. The one in the middle is 115AH deep cycle wet cell (i.e., sulfuric acid, lead plates, and distilled water). The one that you can only partly see on the right is a StowAway starting battery - I don't remember the rating.

According to "The 12V Bible for Boats," a fully charged 12v battery will show 12.6 volts on a meter. If it gets down to 11v, it's "flat dead." From left to right, these batteries read 4.06v, 7.54v, and 0.96v (!). The first two were after the MinKota charger said "charge complete."

These batteries probably can't be resurrected. Retta will be checking to see if she can get me a Group 24 deep cycle gell cell battery through work at a good price. Otherwise, it's off to the chandlery to drop about 200 bucks on a new battery. Ugh!