I never bought the logic, neither did my builder, who used the "long wire"
approach.

Consider, for a 80 foot round trip and an 80 Amp load, you want "2" gauge wire
for a 10% loss. Being conservative, you might go to "0" gauge. That 80 feet
weighs 35 pounds. So the result is you would put a 35 pound starting battery in
the bow instead of distributing 35 pounds along the length. And we're not
talking about all the complications of keeping an extra battery charged and
happy. The only virtue is that you now have some redundancy in a critical area.
But you also have another failure mode.

There are other issues, like how do you prevent 80 amps from going down the
charger wire if you raise the anchor when the engine is running? And if you
don't keep up with the use, how large a battery to you need to ensure you have
the juice to reset the anchor several times, the last time, of course, in the
middle of the night?



"Ray Cullum" wrote in message
...
I am considering adding a electric windlass to my boat and I would like some
opinions on the best way to connect to the electrical system.

The windlass will be approximately 40 feet from my house battery bank which is
700amps. It has been suggested to me to place a small battery up close to the
windlass so you don't have to run heavy battery cable such a distance and
sustain the power loss. Small cable could be run to the battery strictly for
recharging.

Thanks for the help.

Ray Cullum
S/V FROLIC