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Members' Online Book: Cruising Boat Electrical Systems, Chapter 12 of 22

Equalizing Batteries, The Reality

John Published Oct 5, 2010 38 comments Updated February 12, 2019

Fully charging your batteries after each discharge on a live-aboard cruising sailboat is simply not practical. Instead, most of us will cycle our batteries between 50 and 80% of their capacity. The bad news is that this will ruin your lead-acid batteries (regardless of type) in a distressingly short time due to sulphation.

The Solution

But there is an answer to this problem: regular equalization, a process where you deliberately overcharge your batteries for a specified time and voltage to remove the sulphation.

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Meet the Author

John

John was born and brought up in Bermuda and started sailing as a child, racing locally and offshore before turning to cruising. He has sailed over 100,000 miles, most of it on his McCurdy & Rhodes 56, Morgan's Cloud, including eight ocean races to Bermuda, culminating in winning his class twice in the Newport Bermuda Race. He has skippered a series of voyages in the North Atlantic, the majority of which have been to the high latitudes. John has been helping others go voyaging by sharing his experience for twenty years, first in yachting magazines and, for the last 12 years, as co-editor/publisher of AAC.

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About Online Books

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Anchoring Made Easy—Gear

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Anchoring Made Easy—Technique

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There are few activities in the voyaging life that cause more anxiety and stress than anchoring, so here are the techniques you need to get anchored and stay anchored every time.

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Most sailors have thought about transitioning to a power boat, even if only as a way to stay on the water as we age. Here are the issues and options for a sailor’s power boat.

Boat Design & Selection—Ovni 435

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An analysis of what makes an ideal cruising boat engine, together with a step-by-step account of a highly successful repower.

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The options for storm survival from heaving-to to drogue deployment with a step-by-step guide to putting together an easy to deploy and retrieve system.

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The critical issues that you need to understand before you buy a cruising boat. Time-tested tips to help you determine what really matters.

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Do you dream of sailing in turquoise waters? Join “Pélerin” on a voyage in the Caribbean. Colin weaves a travel tale like only he can.

Maintaining a Cruising Boat

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Often what will really govern how much fun and how safe your cruise will be is how good you are at maintaining your boat.

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The fruits of a combined century of navigation, much of it before electronic gadgets, and then we relate that experience to modern electronic navigation.

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Nothing on this website or in direct communications received from us, or in our articles in the media, should be construed to mean or imply that offshore voyaging is anything other than potentially hazardous. Dangers such as, but not limited to, extreme weather, cold, ice, lack of help or assistance, gear failure, grounding, and falling overboard could injure or kill you and wreck your boat.

Decisions such as, but not limited to, heading offshore, where you go, and how you equip your boat, are yours and yours alone. The information on this web site is based on what has worked for the authors in the past, but that does not mean it will work for you, or that it is the best, or even a good way for you to do things.