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Originally Posted by Silver Duck
RG
In your situation, there is no such thing as overkill. If, God forbid, you have another severe alergic reaction your life may depend on your ability to get off the island immediately. 
If it were me or a family member in that situation, I would much rather simply change a battery switch position than need to get into the engine compartment and mess with jump starting the engine. It isn't really all that hard to remember to change which battery you are using every week or two in order to keep both batterys fully charged!
Silver Duck |
Good point, if you really have a need to get started right now then the jump pack is more of a hassle (depends a lot on how accessible your battery is and if you're worried about having to do it by yourself). You could do like the tow truck drivers do and add a high current quick connect port to the boat battery. You get to retain the versatility of the jump pack though if sheer speed is important I'd then opt for the batt saver.
FWIW: If you (RG) do go the 2 batt route, I highly recommend an automatic charging relay (ACR) be included (extra $$ = ~100). Looking at Yankee's schematic, it's the "isolator". This allows the alternator to charge both batteries while the engine is running instead of the more normal case wherein only the battery switched to "on" is charged. It also isolates the 2 batts when the engine is off so you don't get into the situation GWC describes, where a dead battery draws down the good one because you left the battery switch to "both" in order to charge them both up.