Mostly for balance. A lot of times I'm out alone and with one battery on the Starboard side and me in the drivers seat it produces a list to Starboard. I like to try and keep things trim without having to use my tabs, etc.

However... speaking logically about this... the forward part of the hull always takes the most beating, crashing from one wave to the next when running at speed. If you have a concentrated weight, like a battery, resting in that area, then it would seem to me that every time the hull comes down after lifting to go over a wave that weight will act like a hammer to that part of the fiberglass. Once or twice .. no problem... but multiply that by literally thousands of times in a season and you can start to see the potential to do some significant damage to both the battery and the fiberglass.. So rather than chance it I decided to move the battery back to where the pounding is lessened.

I see..

Totally agree about the balance. The whole reason I moved the batteries to the centerline was because of the list. I hated how much I needed to use the trim tabs to level it out and of course tabs do nothing when you are just drifting and fishing from the helm side.

I hadn't really considered how much worse the pounding would be up front but it makes total sense. I spend almost 100% of my running time at the helm so I don't have a sense of how much different the pounding is at the bow or the stern. Still, I installed a pneumatic seat for myself so I should have at least some sympathy for the hull and batteries.

I'm planning on adding a trolling motor eventually and am not thrilled about three more batteries no matter where they go. I guess I'll put them in the same fish box with the other two. Need a solar powered Ulterra...