Best Batteries for Boats
Marine
- Sponsor
- OPTIMA Batteries
- Location
- Glendale, WI
Unlike many boat battery brands, OPTIMA Batteries offers batteries in multiple technologies (AGM or lithium), our parent corporation, Clarios, is one of the largest manufacturers in the world of flooded lead-acid batteries and we are both a battery brand and a battery manufacturer. That experience and expertise allows us to give you advice on the best battery for your boat, even if we don't offer that battery. Many other battery brands are not manufacturers, but resellers of someone else's batteries and often only sell one type of battery, which is what they are most likely to recommend to everyone who asks about the best battery for their boat, even if it's not the best choice.
Flooded Lead-Acid Batteries
Flooded lead-acid batteries are typically the least expensive option between flooded, AGM lead-acid and lithium batteries. However, with that lower price comes lower expectations for performance and lifespan. If you are getting ready to sell your boat and need to replace the batteries, flooded lead-acid batteries will be the most cost-effective option. You are unlikely to recoup the additional cost of either AGM or lithium batteries when selling a boat right away.
If your boat is a smaller, inexpensive fishing boat or runabout, flooded lead-acid batteries may also make a lot of sense. You probably wouldn't spend $300 on a battery for a $500 winter beater car, when you could buy a cheaper $100 battery to get the job done and that same logic may hold true for boat owners on a tighter budget.
AGM Batteries
OPTIMA offers AGM lead-acid boat batteries with our BLUETOP line. These batteries are a significant step up from a traditional flooded lead-acid battery, as they can last up to three times as long and perform better while you're using them. These are a better option if you plan on holding onto your boat for several years, you have a fishing boat with a trolling motor that will cycle batteries a lot or maybe you spend a lot of time at anchor or on a sand bar, listening to music with the engine off.
AGM batteries will come with a higher price tag than flooded lead-acid batteries, but they typically more than pay for the difference over the life of the battery. You just need to make sure you hold onto it or cycle it often enough to get your money's worth. AGM batteries also offer more vibration resistance, so if you spend a lot of time on rough water or your boat spends a lot of time bouncing around on a trailer, AGM batteries will handle that abuse much better than flooded lead-acid batteries. The vast majority of boaters will probably be best off using either flooded lead-acid or AGM batteries.
Lithium Batteries
Lithium-based batteries are the latest and greatest technological innovation in boat batteries, but they typically come at a significantly higher price than AGM or flooded lead-acid batteries. We say "typically," because there are some lithium brands out there, that seem almost unbelievably inexpensive relative to AGM and sometimes even flooded batteries. How is that even possible? There are a lot of brands with strange sounding names being sold online on websites like Aliexpress or Temu and some of those batteries end up being relabeled, marked up and sold again on other popular online shopping sites.
Incredibly, there were brands selling lithium batteries without an integrated Battery Management System (BMS), which every reputable lithium brand now looks at as a basic safety feature. Why did they do it? For some, it may have been less expensive. For others, they may simply have not known any better. Even now, some lithium brands will pound their chest about having a BMS, but do you or they know if it is any good? They may also brag about using only a certain quality of cells, but unless someone is running a YouTube channel, where they crack open the batteries to take a look at the cells, who will ever know?
Even more amazing is that some brands are selling lithium batteries for marine use that are vulnerable to damage from water! We talk to a lot of tournament anglers on the Harris chain of lakes and when we hear from anglers who use lithium batteries and have had failures, one of the most common reasons is because their batteries got wet and water entered the case. All OPTIMA ORANGETOP lithium batteries are IP67-rated against water and dust intrusion. If you are buying batteries for a boat, we wouldn't recommend even considering any lithium battery that isn't at least IP67-rated. It's more expensive to build a lithium battery to that standard, but it's a safety issue that we don't feel can be overlooked.
There are almost more lithium battery brands than can be counted at this point, with new ones popping up on a regular basis (and some disappearing just as quickly). We've heard reports of some of these brands behaving in very unacceptable ways- poor or no customer service, leaving fake reviews for their own batteries, encouraging customers to ship batteries illegally and requesting five-star reviews before providing warranty service, just to name a few examples. We wrote an entire blog that deals with understanding how to identify a reputable battery brand, but for now, we'll focus on who might actually be well-suited for lithium batteries in their boat.
Many lithium brands will tout incredible cycle life, making claims of 10,000 or even 15,000 cycles or more. Doing simple math, if you cycled a lithium battery once a day, it would take you more than 41 years to cycle a battery 15,000 times. Lithium batteries do degrade over time, as anyone with a smart phone can tell you. It's highly unlikely most lithium batteries will be functional long enough to see their full cycle life potential. That's why the warranty terms for many lithium brands do not align with their cycle life claims and once you get deep enough into some of those warranties, the proration fees could meet or exceed the brand's cost on that battery. Some brands only offer warranty coverage once, even if their advertised warranty terms is ten years or more. That could effectively turn a ten-year warranty into a one-year warranty.
Just because you may not cycle a battery even 5,000 times, doesn't mean you won't cycle it far more than the typical lifespan of an AGM battery. Liveaboard boaters who spend a lot of time at anchor or at sea would be at the top of the list of good candidates for lithium batteries. Those types of boaters typically need a lot of battery capacity and the ability to cycle a battery far more deeply and more often than a typical boater.
Another boater who would be a good candidate for lithium batteries would be a serious tournament angler. We're talking about someone who can measure the number of days they spend on the water each year in the hundreds. Commercial fishermen would be another strong candidate, but there are other pleasure boaters, who may benefit from lithium batteries, even if they don't live on the water.
You may have come across these folks at your local party cove or sandbar shindig. They are the life of the party, they play their music louder and longer than anyone else and probably spent more on speakers and amplifiers than many people have into their entire boat! Those types of boaters and others with similar usage habits would be ideal candidates for lithium batteries.
Did We Miss Anyone?
Recreational boating has been around for so long, it's nearly impossible to cover off on every possible boat and use case for a boat battery in a single blog, but we hope this helped the majority of you. If you still have questions about which batteries are best for your boat, ask us on X, send us an email at info@optimabatteries.com or give us a call at 1-888-8-OPTIMA and we'll do our best to help you!
Flooded Lead-Acid Batteries
Flooded lead-acid batteries are typically the least expensive option between flooded, AGM lead-acid and lithium batteries. However, with that lower price comes lower expectations for performance and lifespan. If you are getting ready to sell your boat and need to replace the batteries, flooded lead-acid batteries will be the most cost-effective option. You are unlikely to recoup the additional cost of either AGM or lithium batteries when selling a boat right away.
If your boat is a smaller, inexpensive fishing boat or runabout, flooded lead-acid batteries may also make a lot of sense. You probably wouldn't spend $300 on a battery for a $500 winter beater car, when you could buy a cheaper $100 battery to get the job done and that same logic may hold true for boat owners on a tighter budget.
AGM Batteries
OPTIMA offers AGM lead-acid boat batteries with our BLUETOP line. These batteries are a significant step up from a traditional flooded lead-acid battery, as they can last up to three times as long and perform better while you're using them. These are a better option if you plan on holding onto your boat for several years, you have a fishing boat with a trolling motor that will cycle batteries a lot or maybe you spend a lot of time at anchor or on a sand bar, listening to music with the engine off.
AGM batteries will come with a higher price tag than flooded lead-acid batteries, but they typically more than pay for the difference over the life of the battery. You just need to make sure you hold onto it or cycle it often enough to get your money's worth. AGM batteries also offer more vibration resistance, so if you spend a lot of time on rough water or your boat spends a lot of time bouncing around on a trailer, AGM batteries will handle that abuse much better than flooded lead-acid batteries. The vast majority of boaters will probably be best off using either flooded lead-acid or AGM batteries.
Lithium Batteries
Lithium-based batteries are the latest and greatest technological innovation in boat batteries, but they typically come at a significantly higher price than AGM or flooded lead-acid batteries. We say "typically," because there are some lithium brands out there, that seem almost unbelievably inexpensive relative to AGM and sometimes even flooded batteries. How is that even possible? There are a lot of brands with strange sounding names being sold online on websites like Aliexpress or Temu and some of those batteries end up being relabeled, marked up and sold again on other popular online shopping sites.
Incredibly, there were brands selling lithium batteries without an integrated Battery Management System (BMS), which every reputable lithium brand now looks at as a basic safety feature. Why did they do it? For some, it may have been less expensive. For others, they may simply have not known any better. Even now, some lithium brands will pound their chest about having a BMS, but do you or they know if it is any good? They may also brag about using only a certain quality of cells, but unless someone is running a YouTube channel, where they crack open the batteries to take a look at the cells, who will ever know?
Even more amazing is that some brands are selling lithium batteries for marine use that are vulnerable to damage from water! We talk to a lot of tournament anglers on the Harris chain of lakes and when we hear from anglers who use lithium batteries and have had failures, one of the most common reasons is because their batteries got wet and water entered the case. All OPTIMA ORANGETOP lithium batteries are IP67-rated against water and dust intrusion. If you are buying batteries for a boat, we wouldn't recommend even considering any lithium battery that isn't at least IP67-rated. It's more expensive to build a lithium battery to that standard, but it's a safety issue that we don't feel can be overlooked.
There are almost more lithium battery brands than can be counted at this point, with new ones popping up on a regular basis (and some disappearing just as quickly). We've heard reports of some of these brands behaving in very unacceptable ways- poor or no customer service, leaving fake reviews for their own batteries, encouraging customers to ship batteries illegally and requesting five-star reviews before providing warranty service, just to name a few examples. We wrote an entire blog that deals with understanding how to identify a reputable battery brand, but for now, we'll focus on who might actually be well-suited for lithium batteries in their boat.
Many lithium brands will tout incredible cycle life, making claims of 10,000 or even 15,000 cycles or more. Doing simple math, if you cycled a lithium battery once a day, it would take you more than 41 years to cycle a battery 15,000 times. Lithium batteries do degrade over time, as anyone with a smart phone can tell you. It's highly unlikely most lithium batteries will be functional long enough to see their full cycle life potential. That's why the warranty terms for many lithium brands do not align with their cycle life claims and once you get deep enough into some of those warranties, the proration fees could meet or exceed the brand's cost on that battery. Some brands only offer warranty coverage once, even if their advertised warranty terms is ten years or more. That could effectively turn a ten-year warranty into a one-year warranty.
Just because you may not cycle a battery even 5,000 times, doesn't mean you won't cycle it far more than the typical lifespan of an AGM battery. Liveaboard boaters who spend a lot of time at anchor or at sea would be at the top of the list of good candidates for lithium batteries. Those types of boaters typically need a lot of battery capacity and the ability to cycle a battery far more deeply and more often than a typical boater.
Another boater who would be a good candidate for lithium batteries would be a serious tournament angler. We're talking about someone who can measure the number of days they spend on the water each year in the hundreds. Commercial fishermen would be another strong candidate, but there are other pleasure boaters, who may benefit from lithium batteries, even if they don't live on the water.
You may have come across these folks at your local party cove or sandbar shindig. They are the life of the party, they play their music louder and longer than anyone else and probably spent more on speakers and amplifiers than many people have into their entire boat! Those types of boaters and others with similar usage habits would be ideal candidates for lithium batteries.
Did We Miss Anyone?
Recreational boating has been around for so long, it's nearly impossible to cover off on every possible boat and use case for a boat battery in a single blog, but we hope this helped the majority of you. If you still have questions about which batteries are best for your boat, ask us on X, send us an email at info@optimabatteries.com or give us a call at 1-888-8-OPTIMA and we'll do our best to help you!