Re: Electric start "back in the day"….

[David Stanton]

Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, on Dad’s boat, we ran a 30 Johnson and later a 40. At the cabin we skied a lot every weekend, using over 200 gallons of gas each summer (had a 50 gallon drum in the backyard filled by a bulk tanker truck). We used a car battery, which was more like light truck batteries today in terms of size. We would charge the battery when it no longer cranked the motor and that was every 4 to 6 weeks of heavy use. We seldom went out at night running lights, and there were no other electrical accessories. In 1966, we got a V4 60 – same usage, same charge interval. On all these motors, of course, we could start by the recoil when the battery got low.
I still run car batteries in my boats. When I need another boat battery, I take the oldest car/truck battery I have out of the vehicle and buy a new one for it – an aging vehicle battery that may go bad the next winter will often run a few more years in a boat. By doing this, I never have a battery go bad in my vehicles, and I don’t pay a needless premium price for a marine battery.
Dave