Boating is one of Australia’s favourite past times, and no longer is the normal boat you see running a smelly old two-stroke motor with nothing else on board.

Running lights, one or two fish finders or GPS units and electric trolling motors are the norm on most fishing boats you see these days. To power these essential accessories, you’re going to need more than a small crank battery that’s wired up to your outboard – especially if you’re running an electric motor which uses a lot more power than low-draw LED lights and electronics.

The most important accessory for running an electric motor is a good quality secondary battery in your boat. The second most, especially if you plan to camp by the river or bank of a dam and get a few days fishing in, is a way to charge it. Let’s take a look at how you can easily do both of these things, on a budget, and ensure you spend your time on the water having fun, not chasing problems.

Why you need a deep cycle battery

Deep cycle batteries like the Kings range are designed to be charged and discharged much more regularly than a standard cranking battery that would have come standard with your boat if you have an electric-start outboard motor.

Not only do deep cycle batteries like the 98ah and 115ah Kings range charge up to 5 times faster than normal crank batteries (more on that later), they actually enjoy being discharged and charged. What we mean by that is they’re designed to be drained and charged back up regularly, even hundreds of times, without causing damage to them. Their life won’t be shortened if they get taken down to 20% then back up to 100% often, but if you do this with a standard crank battery you’ll wear it out much sooner than usual.

The features of a deep cycle, therefore, are especially important when running an electric motor on your boat. A 55lb or 80lb electric motor (the two most common sizes) use a lot of power, especially if you’re holding your position in the wind or current for hours during a session casting. You could expect to get around 10 hours of continuous run time out of a Kings 115ah deep cycle battery running an electric motor, which equates to a couple of big days on the water. And after you are done fishing, apart from being serviced with reliable power the whole time you were on the water, you’ll be happy to know you didn’t damage your deep cycle battery because you used it for what it was designed for – regular discharging and then charging.

Before we get to charging, it’s important to note a couple of other very important features of the Kings battery range which make them perfect for use on the boat.

They are an AGM design (Absorbant Glass Matt) instead of a traditional wet cell design. AGM Kings batteries are leak proof and don’t require water top ups or maintenance. This is really important because you often store the second battery in your boat low, below the deck, to keep the centre of gravity low. That’s not an easy place to try and top up water levels.

Also, being leak proof and AGM built, these batteries are very vibration resistant, which of course is important for a boat that bashes through chop and then bounces on a trailer its entire life!

How to charge your Kings AGM deep cycle battery in the boat or home

Let’s look at the two best ways to charge your battery. First up, a complete Kings solar panel kit that includes a regulator and charging cables is everything you need in one package to charge your battery. The Kings 120w folding solar blanket or 160w or 250w folding solar panels are perfect for this role.

Any of the three will plug straight in to your battery and start topping it up immediately when placed in sunlight. This is a popular way to charge your battery when camping as people often return to camp during the middle of the day when the sun is highest and the fishing worse. Giving your battery a few hours of solar charging can prolong how many usable amps are left in it by days! A good tip is to pair your Kings solar kit with a 10m extension lead with Anderson plugs. This will help move your solar panel further from the water’s edge so it doesn’t get swallowed by a rising tide!

Another way to charge your battery at camp is to pair a CTEK M100, M200 or M300 charger with a Kings 2kva or 3.5kva generator. This trick will help you pump serious juice into your battery in minutes, meaning you can fully charge your battery each day or night no matter how much you’ve drained it. The M300 can put as many as 25 amps into your battery, meaning you could fully charge a flat 98ah Kings AGM battery in just four hours!

Any of these industry-leading CTEK chargers are also ideal for rigging up to your battery once it’s home to charge and maintain it. CTEK chargers are incredibly smart and use up to 8 different charging steps to not only bring it back to full capacity quickly, but to also maintain the charge so the battery does not get damaged and you never to the boat ramp with a flat.

A handy tip is to add a CTEK Comfort Connect battery indicator to your setup to help show you the level of charge at a quick glance. This is especially handy when you’re on the water or if you’re in a boat that only has an electric motor, as you can reliably check how much charge is left so you know to leave enough to get back to the ramp!