Okay hope I dont have too many stupid questions but on this resto I'm trying to do it once abd do it right so here goes, My boat is a 223LS and while the motor is out I'm tending to the bilge. I want to put in billet battery hold downs and new batterys, what kind of batterys should I put in? Conventional automotive? Optma? gell? My use for this boat is this, going out acroos the sound to Claudios, overnighting once in awhile(which gives me another problem, leaving an anchor light on over night killing the battery????) driffting or beaching with tunes on for a couple hrs. It has two batterys so I'm hoping to have enough juice to start in the morning? any input is very welcomed thanks.
PS I will be posting pics of resto today

Do search in the Tech Section. There's piles of info there on battery types. Many opinions there. Some guys on this site really know their battery stuff.

Thanks Thirdbird

do what bird said ...... I use the biggest marine bats that sams or walmart sells one cranking that is only on to start the boat *only TO START* and one deep cycle or dual type to run everything else. I have about a 1200 watt stereo and it runs several hours with out going dead turned about half way up. Your lights would not kill a battery over night, we have a small fan in the cabin and it works all night and then some

Thanks 88 formula I havent overnighted yet so I dont have a clue. This summer though I'll be going more places for sure and overnighting. Thanks again.

sure... The batteries last a long time if charged fully and maintained through out the year. I always top mine off with the charger before I go out / or put away for the day

there is a Formula (pun intended) to figure out how long a battery will last

its called "Peukert's Formula"

http://www.gizmology.net/batteries.htm

that website has a calculator

I had an 87 223LS and used two Interstate deep cycle batteries. As far as I'm concerned Interstate is one of the best, if not the best. Never had one problem. If you need exact model, let me know.

Chris