Blue top Optima or deep cycle battery

MrMondo

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Joined
Apr 3, 2012
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Where I work we have a Clark aluminum boat used for water rescue. The lights we have on it are halogen 55 watts for searching. There are 6 of them mounted. There is also a 20,000 candlewatt spot light that can be plugged into an outlet. We had a situation where we spent about 4 hours on the water searching for a victim. The battery, a blue top Optima dual marine use was loosing power before the search called off for the night. My question is, would a group 27 or 39 deep cycle battery be better for power storage than the Optima? I am working on convincing those with the credit card to switch from the halogen lights to LED lighting which draws less amps and will make any battery last longer.

Have also tossed around the idea of hooking the batteries in parallel to double the storage capacity. But then that would be using the engine battery also which is the same type. Would that set up be too much for the 18 amp alternator that is on the Merc 60 horse motor we have. I do know that it won't put out a full 18 amps on low idle so when crusing slow that may not help.

Anyway any idea would be of great help.
 
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