When I bought my current boat, I chucked all the 8D's.....I replaced the starting ones with 3 group 31's (AGM) and 6-6 volt AGM Lifelines for the house/inverter... Interesting side note....I had some loose cables on the starting batteries and for quite a while I was only using ONE group 31 to start my Cat 3208's, which it did with no complaint. Being redundant I use a 4th group 31 to start the Generator in case I need to cannibalize anything Sam Agajanian In a message dated 4/20/2009 1:55:31 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, rcrogers6@kennett.net writes: It is the Optima Red Top that is designed for starting. The Blue Top D34M is a dual-purpose battery which can serve as a starting battery. Neither I nor Optima have any clue what the Yellow Tops are for! All retain a charge astonishingly well, but, owing to their small size are not suitable (IMHO) for a house bank which requires the batteries recommended by Arild or their expensive AGM 6V equivalents. Ron Rogers _______________________________________________ http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/trawlers-and-trawlering To unsubscribe or modify your subscription options (get password, change email address, etc) go to: http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/options/trawlers-and-trawlering Trawlers & Trawlering and T&T are trademarks of Water World Productions. Unauthorized use is prohibited.