WHEN SHIP HAPPENS

I have one critical item on my Spring Outfitting list before bottom painting and  launching BIANKA for

the season. It is to replace one of the four batteries in the 48 volt electric propulsion  
battery bank. Even though the batteries are only two years old it looks like one of them
failed and needs to be replaced due to an error in judgment on my part but, caused by
the freight company that did not secure the batteries in shipping. Herein lies the cautionary
tale for others to not make the same mistake I made.  I converted Bianka to Electric
propulsion in 2008. At that time I installed four 8A4D batteries in series to make up the
48 volt propulsion Bank. They did quite well and lasted for eight years. In year eight one
of them showed signs of failure.

Since it is good practice to try and keep all the batteries used in the same bank the same age. I decided to replace all of the batteries instead of the one that was beginning to fail.  The Battery was drop shipped from a warehouse in Florida and took a week to make it up to Long Island. The four batteries were supposed to be delivered to my house.  However I got a call from the shipping company that I needed to come by and pick them up at the warehouse. I thought this was a little strange but I was too excited and wanted to have the batteries installed on board as soon as possible.   So I made no complaint. I drove to the warehouse on a hot summer day to pick up the four batteries. A couple of the warehouse workers were acting a little strange as I asked about my order and they seemed to take their time bringing out the  batteries with the forklift.

There were a few things I noticed that seem strange but I did not question them at the time.
 First was the batteries were not secured to the pallet, the plastic they were wrapped in was
ripped off of them and the cardboard that covered them  was kind of ripped up too. I lifted up
the cardboard from two of the batteries they seemed okay so I accepted the order and and
I had the workers load the batteries into my car.

It was only after I drove to the boatyard to install the batteries on the boat that I discovered
to my horror that two of the batteries were physically damaged. Unfortunately, these were
the two that I didn't look at at the warehouse. Their lugs were bent over like they had been
dropped on them.

The other two batteries looked physically okay.  Here is where I made my error. I called the company where I bought the batteries and told them of the damage to the batteries and I
would need two replacements. I should have rejected the entire shipment because even
though the other two did not look physically damaged one of them was damaged internally
which I discovered while on one of my cruises last year. It’s voltage would start dropping
rapidly when under a heavy current draw compared to the other three batteries in the bank.
Which is why I plan on replacing it this year. But, just to make sure the suspected bad battery is indeed bad. I’ll do a quick check of all the batteries to confirm my suspicions.