There was a thread over the winter that discussed the pro's and con's of marine batteries in general, and Optima's in particular. I mentioned in that thread that as soon as my Optima's died (and they would), I was upgrading to Odyssey's. Well, my second trip out this year, my Optima's died, so here are a couple of pics of my upgrade to Odyssey's. Thanks and props to Young Performance and Thunderusone for pointing me in the right direction on this one.

These are the 1700's, they come with a four year warranty, and have an expected use time of 10 to 12 YEARS!

Do you use the same battery box, lets say for a Group 24?

We just picked up Odyssey as a sponsor for our Super Vee Light. My first Odyessy battery lasted 10 years in my street/strip car. It was the small 680 size to. In our SVL we are going to run the 2 small 1200s and mount them under the motor to lower and shift the CG. They cost a little more, but will outperform anything other than what Nasa has

No, that was the only real bummer to the deal, these are group 27 so I had to get new boxes from Eddie Marine for the install.

Allright, what is wrong with the Optima battery and how long should they last?

if you can get one to last a full season you are really lucky. The Optima is a gel filled battery that is designed to be charged at 1.5amps. If you put a fully charged Optima in your boat and go to the water and do nothing but start the boat and drive it may last a year. But if you anchor, listen to your radio very much, run your nav lights or anything else that draws on the battery, when you start your motor the alternator will hit that battery with a 100 or 120amps, which over time will boil the gel in the Optima and reduce its ability to take and hold a charge which in essence kills the battery.

The problem with this scenario is that hardly anyone without a battery tender ever actually goes to the water with their batteries fully charged, so you are always fighting the overcharging issue with the Optima's. The Odyssey is a dry cell set up and is not as susceptible to the issues that the Optima's have and their warranty demonstrates that fact.

On the flip side, if you are running Optima's, I have a really nice 12 month old dual Optima billet battery tray for sale!!

Dual Optima battery tray....I am taking offers!!

The Optima is not a gel battery. It is filled with acid and then vacuumed out so there is no acid in the battery. The acid is absorbed in the separators and the plates.

OK, but that doesn't make them suck any less.

The issues with overcharging by the alternator and ultimately losing their ability to take a charge remain the same.