I'm 54 and fat. I lean way over, into the lazarette, to install and remove my batteries each year. I end up with a sore stomach, loose weather stripping, and drool on top of the batteries. When I crawl inside to empty the muffler each fall, it takes my lifesling attached to the halyard, wrapped around a winch with 3 guys pulling on it, along with two tubes of Vaseline to get me out. If you come up with a better plan, let me know. John Wamboldt C27 #6287 ZuZu's Petals Lake Michigan In a message dated 4/10/2010 6:34:09 P.M. Central Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
I'm 71 and I crawl down in the hole so I can work on them easier and can see the water level. It would be nicer to have them 24" higher! It is then fun to crawl back out. I get in there also to change the primary filter on my fuel system. Dick Schmidt Greenville, NC Rush No More --- On Sat, 4/10/10, Andrew <[email protected]> wrote: From: Andrew <[email protected]> Subject: [IC27A] Inconvenient battery installation on Catalina 27 To: [email protected]: Date: Saturday, April 10, 2010, 5:04 PM I have a 1986 Catalina 27 that I have had since 1990. I have always found the battery box at the bottom of the sail locker (portside) very difficult to reach. It's just too darn far down in the locker for me to reach easily during installation and removal of the batteries. The real challange is to hang my 69 year-old upper body over the lip of that locker as I try to reach the battery terminals to attach the cables. I use battery boxes to for each of the two batteries. I have thought of some kind of modification to raise the batteries up a bit. Perhaps I could build a false bottom into the battery well to raise the batteries up five or six inches. Or, I could attatch something to the bottom of the battery boxes to raise them up. Has anyone had a similar problem and, if so, what have you done about it? I would really like to hear of any solutions that you guys have employed. Andy Dalzell Catalina-27 #6298 Rebizak Sandusky Bay
