Anyone with Cape Horn 24 move Batteries to Console? - The Hull Truth

areno101 · 03-31-2003, 07:30 AM

My Brother just picked up a Cape Horn 24 this weekend with two batteries in the transom, each connected to an outboard. We were thinking about moving the batteries to the walk in console and adding a third battery with a switch to function as the "house" battery. Anyone with experience care to share their design? Thanks, Adam

chorn24 · 03-31-2003, 08:13 AM

I had the batteries under the console of my 21, I did not like it as much as having them in the transome, I may have to put a house battery in there though. There is plenty of conduit to do anything you want. It just stays cleaner down there with no oil or batteries.

areno101 · 03-31-2003, 08:29 AM

Thanks for your reply! We are planning on adding a third house battery and thought it would be nice to get the battery weight off the transom and have a little easier access to a battery switch and an electronics breaker panel. Does the hull truth have a way to directly email a member? I was thinking that It would be nice to have your email once we beging installing things and getting used to the boat. We just had a 30 min sea trial on Sat and then towed the boat back to Maryland. Thanks for you help.

chorn24 · 03-31-2003, 09:00 AM

Give me your email address and I will send you mine.

Ed in FL · 03-31-2003, 10:54 AM

I installed a house/elecronics battery in the console on the little "shelf" that is located at the back of the console. I mounted a batter tray and a hold down strap to make sure it doesn't go anywhere. Solid as a rock there.

I suppose you could mount the two starting batteries in the console also, but that's a lot of heavy gauge wire running back and forth to the motors. I thought about it but decided to leave them in the transom for now.

areno101 · 04-01-2003, 02:00 PM

I think I like your idea of keeping the two starting batteries in the transom and just putting the house battery in the console. The extra wire would be expensive and then I'm not sure how the fumes generated by three batteries in the closed console would effect the space. BTW, What gage wire did you use to run from the console back to the charging system?

Chorn24.. I was hoping that THT had a way to send an email message to a user without revealing the users email address. I usually don't like to post my email address in a public forum but here goes: areno @frederick.edu. Give me a shout when you have a chance. Thanks, Adam

Ed in FL · 04-01-2003, 08:02 PM

When I picked up my boat, they had both batteries on the port side. I rerigged and moved one to each side to help balance the load. I used a West Marine Combiner to charge the house battery. I believe I ran 10 gauge wire from the combiner to the house battery.

Yep, just ran out and checked, used 10 gauge wire from the batteries to the combiner. I'm in the process of reading past posts in the Electronics forum and will redo my wiring properly in the next few weeks. I've got a mess right now.

The console is vented, so don't let that stop you from putting batteries in there.