I have a pair of 8D batteries
I have the same year, same boat. I have a pair of 8D batteries mounted port and starboard in the under the berths, and a size 27 dedicated starting battery mounted under the pilot berth. The charger and alternator go directly to the 8D bateries, and an echo charger charges the starting battery when it senses a charge going to the house bank. I have a three switch panel with on-off 100 amp breaker for the house bank, on- off for the starting battery, and a cross connect that allows starting from the house bank if the starting battery dies ( new this year). This amount of house bank allows me to run the guts from a dorm refrigerator that I stuffed into my icebox off of an inverter for about 100 hours and only run the batteries down to about 50%. The 8Ds also added about 300 pounds of additional ballast below the waterline making the boat a little stiffer. the reason I went witha pair of 8D gel cells is that a fellow club member was giving them away so he could convert to more smaller batteries.
