I stopped by to visit my boat today since temps were in the low 50's. Turned on the battery switch and tried to raise the hatch, battery was dead. I charged it 6 weeks ago when I got the boat and put it in storage, but obviously it's toast! I was already planning on installing dual batteries and "jumper terminals" under the rear bench in Spring! How do I open the hatch in the mean time? Will removing the hinge pins above the swim platform work or is there another trick? Steve

Use jumper cables from you car, or get one of those "battery in a box" jumper set ups, Home Depot had a good sale on them.
You won't be able to stop the nuts from turning under the hatch, as you turn the screw heads, and you'd still have to remove the center mount for the ram.

Your hatch is a power up and weight down. You can just manually lift the hatch. Also Sonic is now offering a jump setup optional on all boats. Clean applicaton that is installed neatly under the rear seat

There are two ways to open the hatch. One is to use a jump box and run wires to the fuse for the hatch then use the switch to lift the hatch. The other is on the back seat back rest. The center section is held in with velcro. Pull this section out and it will give you access to the hatch ram so youcan remove the through bolt and lift the hatch manually.

Bill

Mine is not held on with velcro, it is screws. I found out the hard way.

Just manually lift up the hatch, and stick a 2x4 in there to hold up long enough for you to jump start it in the spring.

Better battery maintenance is to remove the battery completely, and stick in on trickle charger in your garage or basement. Both mine are in the garage on trickle chargers.

I dont know about the smaller Sonics, but I know on the bigger ones, atleast on all the ones I have seen, there is no way to access the engine compartment if the battery dies. There is no access door to get to the ram. My ram has a bolt that secures the ram to the swimpad/engine hatch mount, there is no pull pin. You can not pull the pins from the sunpad/engine cover on the hinges on the pad, as the ram still holds the hatch closed.

So unless you have a shore power connection & have a built in charger as I do, you are screwed ! I once had a problem, no shore power available and the batteries died, no way to open the hatch.... thinking on it, I had a portable jump start pack, $50.00 from boaters world, which I always ensure has a full charge. Went to the fuse panel, connected the cables from the jump start pack to the incomming main ground & hot legs from the batteries on the fuse board, basically backfeeding voltage to the batteries, and was able to open the hatch. Without the jumpstart pack, no shore power & dead batteries, no way to open the hatch or start the generator to charge the batteries or open the hatch.

This is the only problem I can see with the bigger Sonics. If they have addressed this potential problem, that is great. But on mine
( a 42 ) I was screwed unless I thought of the jumpstart pack.

My brothers 32 Pachanga, he has a small door/access panel on the rear of his swim pad with a pull, pull this up, you have access to to a deck plate, unscrew the cover, put your hand in, pull the pull pin, and you can open the hatch manually.

I dont know what the sun pads weigh on the smaller Sonics, but mine, all lifts as a single unit, seat base, seat backs, and sun pad...it weighs a ton ! Better have been eatin your wheaties or been workin out, cause you will get one lifting my hatch !

My boat is stored inside, but I just leave the batteries in the boat and run an extension cord through a cup holder in the side pocket which I then feed into the engine compartment. There I have two of those $15 battery pals hooked to the batteries. I turn off the main battery switch as well.... No more lugging those dammed batteries out again.... works perfect!!! Think I got the chargers from Northern Hydraulics....

Thanks for all the feedback! I think jumping the fuse panel back to the battery sounds like the ticket. I'll certainly remidy this from ever happening again with jumper terminals. You'ld think Sonic would at least provide these. I know you can probably order them as an option, but I didn't order out the boat. I certainly would have ordered dual batteries among countless other things. Oh well, I'll know just what to order on the 31 or 35!