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Rosalie B.

wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:47:05 -0400, Rosalie B.
wrote:

wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:24:50 +0000, Larry wrote:

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

1.13. Do NOT use wet lead-acid batteries around salt water. If salt
water is mixed with the battery's electrolyte, deadly chlorine gas is
produced. Only use sealed AGM (Ca/Ca) or Gel Cell (Ca/Ca) VRLA
batteries around salt water.

Good advice I think.

Not really so much

The advice is Ca/Ca, allright. AGM and Gellcell batteries ARE lead acid
batteries, just like wetcells.

Wetcells PROPERLY SECURED INTO THE BATTERY BOX are just as safe as the
other batteries for thousands more because they have gas vent caps on
them that seal out the seawater and seal in the electrolyte in case you
pitch pole the boat doing something stupid or a rogue wave hits.

When you crack the case of an AGM, however, it does not leak acid like a flooded
battery. Even batteries that are tied down sometimes break free in a capsize, or
rough conditions. And if something else is thrown against them hard enough, that
may also release the contents.

If you are going to power something with gasoline, that's a whole lot
more hazardous - as in more likely to cause a problem - than having
batteries thrown around and release their contents. If you are in
rough enough conditions that your batteries are going to be thrown
around even if they are tied down, then you have big problem, and just
changing the type of battery you have won't help you much.

Yeah, my car has seatbelts, so why worry about having airbags. :')

We have old cars and they don't have airbags. g

Ask anyone who has ever had battery acid flung around in a boat, and
then get back to me about whether it's an important issue.

How many people are there who have had battery acid flung around the
boat?

Gasoline is a completely different discussion, as is the one
concerning having a 50 foot tall metal pole mounted on your boat.
There are lots of potential dangers on a boat. It makes sense to
mitigate as many as you can - within reason.

When we used to have to assess penalties for violations of the health
and safety standards we had to use four factors and two of them were
hazardousness (a one level hazard was a cut or rash and a four level
hazard was death or permanent physical disability) and one of them was
likelihood of something happening. I would rate:

Fire from gasoline - hazard 3 and likelihood 2
Tall metal pole - hazard 1 or 2 and likelihood about a 2, and
Danger of battery acid being flung around a boat - hazard 2, and
likelihood 1

You may disagree.