Battery Location for CD36

Bob Brown · Post by **Bob Brown** » Apr 10th, '10, 10:31

Hello,

Has anyone moved their battery banks on a CD36 to under the cockpit sole in the engine compartment? We are considering putting 5 AGM glassmats in the engine compartment in sealed boxes. This will free up the starboard locker where our 1 house and 1 starting bank are currently located. This will also move the weight to center and forward. Catnap might develope a list with this move? The forward and 1/4 berth water tanks have been relocated under the salon sole by a previous owner. We plan to replace the 6 gallon hot water heater in the same locker with an eleven gallon. This will help the balance some but not much.

Thanks for your input.

Bob

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Apr 10th, '10, 10:48

How were the two water tanks relocated to under the cabin sole? THe fuel tank takes up the vast majority of the area. Did you lose a lot of capacity?

As for the battieres, I would not put them under the cockpit sole. They would seriously impead your access to your steering, stuffing box and transmission.

As for list, this can normally be taken care of with your storage plan. To counter the list of the batteries being starboard on my boat I stow all my tools to port (but as a full time liveaboard, the weight I carry in tools is vastly higher then most).

Bob Brown · Post by **Bob Brown** » Apr 10th, '10, 16:37

Catnap is a 1981 hull #41 and has her 42 gal. aluminum fuel tank located forward in the port lazarette. This looks like it's a stock set up?

I'm concerned about crowding the access to the stuffing box and the transmission. If no other 36s have tried this battery arrangement I will make cardboard models to see how everything fits before proceeding. Unfortunately locating more of the batteries on the port side will help keep the 1/4 berth access less obstructed but will shift more weight to the wrong side.

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Apr 10th, '10, 17:10

I am curious, since you do not have a tank under your quarter berth, could the batteries be placed in there? Since I have a water maker I have often thought about getting rid of the quarterberth tank to allow for more storage, and have wondered if batteries would fit in there, though I suspect due to the curve of the hull there is a lot less space there then I am imagining.

The CD36 does not lend itsself well to a large battery array without sacraficing valuable storage unforunately. I have a 5 group 31s in the the starboad cockpit locker, which makes it mostly unusable for anything else (your having a fuel tank in a cockpit locker makes this even worse). I am always struggling with cockpit locker space, I carry a lot of things, such as a drogue, extra anchors and chain, and about 300' of line for hurricanes in them that most do not have, in addition to all the other things like fenders and lifejackets. Interior battery storage, in a place like under one of the setees would also lose valued space. Your idea of behind the engine is interesting, but I just cannot envision it working well without impeading important access to key systems, I will be very curious as to what you find when you do your cardboard test, there is indeed a tremendous amount of unused space in there.

John Stone · Post by **John Stone** » Apr 10th, '10, 19:02

Bob
A solution might be to raise the starboard quarter berth since there is way more overhead room there than you need and locate your batteries under it on a shelf over the water tank. Raising the berth is a simply modification though you would lose the sitting navigation station. I am converting mine to a standing nav station for just that reason. Though I have no experience with AGMs, I am told they do not off-gas so perhaps there wouldn't be a safety issue. That would not affect your access to engine, tranny, stuffing box, steering system, and keep the weight more or less where is is now.

John
http://www.farreachvoyages.com

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Apr 10th, '10, 19:37

John, he said his quarterberth water tank has been removed, so raising may not be nessisary, I am curious to hear how much space he has in there sans tank.

On the same line though, do you use your quarterberth at all? Most people do not (unless they have multipule kids that go sailing with them). As a single hander I had no use for it other then storage, so I build a proper seat at the nav station and have a shelf behind me to make better use of the storage back there. Right now the bulk of the area behind the seat is used up by my cats litter box and spare litter. The cat is old tough, pushing 16, when he does pass away I am actually going to close off the whole area behind the nav seat with a door and move all my batteries in there, in addition to my SSB tuner, inverter, battery charger, solar controller, fridge compressor, you name it. Get all that junk out of my cockpit lockers and into a nice neat little "engineering room". But for now, the cat owns that space. Having a proper seat at the nav station is wonderful as well, if you do not plan to use your quarter berth.

John Stone · Post by **John Stone** » Apr 10th, '10, 20:27

Russell,
I have 10 year old twins. I am installing pilot berths in my boat--one on each side. Full length with settees inboard. Each kid gets his/her own berth. I will keep the pilot berth probably at its current height (I had originally thought I would raise and narrow it, and I still might) but build a narrower berth above it and outboard next to the hull. It will be a single berth for either my wife or me (hot racking) when off-watch when we are off-shore. The V-berth will be converted to a portside double berth in port. So, I need to keep some kind of Q-berth. The lower quarter berth will be nothing but storage. My water tanks go in the bilge. We are maxing out storage under the pilot berths and under the settees. But, then my needs are alot different than other folks. The stock CD-36 has very little storage--but with some mods you can double or triple usable space. Just personal choices.

Best regards,
John

Jeff Barnes · Post by **Jeff Barnes** » Apr 10th, '10, 22:19

Bob,

Greetings. I have CD36 #68 (1982). I have located 4 6V AGM batteries (400 AH) in the small storage area under the starboard sttee (photo attached). They have performed flwlessly for 6 years and are out of the way in this location. Engine start battery, fridge compressor, autopilot drive unit and water heater are in the port cockpit locker (photo attached). Water heater is 6 gal. Atlantic and is more than ample given that the water is heated from the engine cooling system. I use the aft lazarette for general storage and have also located the SSB atenna tuner in there. The starboard cockpit locker holds 2 CNG cylinders for the stove/oven (much preferred over propane).

Best regards,

Jeff

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Greg Kozlowski · Post by **Greg Kozlowski** » Apr 10th, '10, 23:16

My biggest concern about locating batteries in the engine space would be heat and accessability. Depending on your intended cruising area, of course, but if you are going to be in the tropics, it may be an issue. We cruise in Greece/Turkey during summers and it is not uncommon to have 40c+ days. On some days, I need to run an exit blower to cool down the engine space.

As for assess, I like to visually check on things whenever possible. We now also have AGM type dry cell batteries on board and last summer one of them went dead. While the LINK10 indicated that there was probably a problem, it only became obvious which batttery was shot by simply putting my hand on each one and feeling the temp.....the bad one was terribly hot. So hot, in fact, I was a bit concerned it might self destruct. So I disconnected it from the others immediately. I wonder if it would have been as easily apparent were the batts in the engine space.

Lastly, we have the original bronze stuffing box setup, accessable thru the side opening in the quarter berth area. Adjustment and visual inspection in this area which includes the rudder and steering quadrant is frequently needed and IMHO should at all cost remain easily accessible.

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Apr 10th, '10, 23:45

Greg Kozlowski wrote:My biggest concern about locating batteries in the engine space would be heat and accessability. Depending on your intended cruising area, of course, but if you are going to be in the tropics, it may be an issue. We cruise in Greece/Turkey during summers and it is not uncommon to have 40c+ days. On some days, I need to run an exit blower to cool down the engine space.

This is a terrific point that I did not think of. Batteries efficency is highly dependant on their tempuature. Thats why temp sensors are a common addition with modern battery chargers and altinator regulators these days. When charging batteries temps raise, as they raise their ability to take a charge decreses, having your batteries in the engine room will cause them to heat up even faster at the very time they are being charged (engine running), not an ideal setup.

Lastly, we have the original bronze stuffing box setup, accessable thru the side opening in the quarter berth area. Adjustment and visual inspection in this area which includes the rudder and steering quadrant is frequently needed and IMHO should at all cost remain easily accessible.

Even if you have replaced the origonal stuffing box with a dripless system, access is just as important, in fact it could be argued that it is even more so (dripless systems need burping, and any failure in them tends to be catastrophic).

I did replace the engine in my own CD36, with the new engine, being smaller, I can actually access the tranny and prop shaft from the cabin engine hatch (so long as my gut does not grow too much more). Still, even with that, I would never want to restrict my access to the steering, which could easily be argued as a more important system then the engine.

Bob Brown · Post by **Bob Brown** » Apr 11th, '10, 23:22

It looks like 5 batteries can fit in there on a shelf. The heat issue is a major concern and requires further investigation. The dripless stuffing box can be accessed through the front hatch of the engine compartment. She has a new Yanmar and with a cushion I can lie on the top of the motor and reach back for burping. All the through hulls would be accessible from the side or the front. The steering stuffing box will be inaccessible without removing some of batteries. This is also an issue. I would be able to go through the aft lazarette however there is a double tank propane locker back there against the bulkhead. Not sure if cutting a hole in that bulkhead would be acceptable? Both settees have water tanks under them. Putting the 6V and 12V wet batteries back into the starboard locker sounds easy.

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Apr 12th, '10, 01:41

Bob Brown wrote:It looks like 5 batteries can fit in there on a shelf. The heat issue is a major concern and requires further investigation. The dripless stuffing box can be accessed through the front hatch of the engine compartment. She has a new Yanmar and with a cushion I can lie on the top of the motor and reach back for burping. All the through hulls would be accessible from the side or the front. The steering stuffing box will be inaccessible without removing some of batteries. This is also an issue. I would be able to go through the aft lazarette however there is a double tank propane locker back there against the bulkhead. Not sure if cutting a hole in that bulkhead would be acceptable? Both settees have water tanks under them. Putting the 6V and 12V wet batteries back into the starboard locker sounds easy.

The steering stuffing box should not be of great concern, mine has needed repacking for 5 years now, but due to previous owner modifications its a difficult job that I keep putting off. But its not a big deal, your wheel of course moves at extreamly low speed, you will not see catastrophic failure there and the once every 20 years you need to repack it its not a big deal to remove some batteries. What is a concern is your access to the steering cable, that can fail and could result in a very bad day. I carry an extra steering cable ready to go, and access to replace it is important to me.

If you are doing mostly local cruising, and also have a below decks autopilot connected directly to the rudder shaft, you can probably get by with limited steering cable access. But for extended cruising or not having a below decks autopilot, I would be concerned if you cannot get to it easily. You really do not want to rely on your emergency rudder, I actually installed and tested mine once, and honestly, unless I am about to hit something, I would rather crawl into the engine compartment and replace the steering cable.

Matt Cawthorne · Post by **Matt Cawthorne** » Apr 12th, '10, 11:31

Bob,
I would caution you about adding that much weight that far aft. A few years ago I moved my batteries from the lazerette to the space under the starboard setee. My reason was that the boat has been getting lower in the stern. I was pleased with the improvement in how the boat sits. In addition, my boat had 2-300 lb of lead under the starboard setee. Removing that lead and still having a boat that sits level is nice. What I lost in the process was some water tank space. I have been bending up a new tank, but the welding has yet to be done. Longer battery runs meant larger battery cable.

Matt

Jeff Barnes · Post by **Jeff Barnes** » Apr 12th, '10, 13:05

Bob,

Correction to my earlier post. The phot I show with the 4 6V batteries is actually in the port (not starboard) sette. Specifically in the small L-section at the aft end of the sette...low and almost in the center of the boat.

Jeff

John Danicic · Post by **John Danicic** » Apr 12th, '10, 15:00

Matt Cawthorne wrote: In addition, my boat had 2-300 lb of lead under the starboard settee. Removing that lead and still having a boat that sits level is nice. What I lost in the process was some water tank space. I have been bending up a new tank, but the welding has yet to be done. Longer battery runs meant larger battery cable.

Matt

Matt:

How big a battery cable do you have running to the power panel and from the alternator? Where do these cables run?

Also, I figure that I would need about 250lbs of weight on the starboard side to correct the "water tanks are empty" list to port. Did this amount of lead correct this list? What happened when the water tanks were full?

Sail on

John Danicic
CD36 - Mariah - #124
Lake Superior - The Apostle Islands
CDSOA # 655

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Battery Location for CD36

Battery Location for CD36

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