So, I went yesterday morning to see if I needed to put a charge on my lithium batteries to go fishing today. My starting battery showed between 13 and 14v. I got out to the lake and no power to motor. I went thru all my fuses and checked for good battery connection and found nothing wrong. Checked with 2 different multimeters and still between 12 and 13v. I hooked up the charger and bam everything worked. I went so far as to watch youtube video to make sure I hadn't done something wrong and no I tested exactly how I'm supposed to. Anyone have a clue what this is all about? I have kill switches to my other batteries and not my starter. Should I have one put on it? I generally charge my batteries after every use but decided to just check them with a multimeter this time and it cost me a trip.

Is your starting battery lithium also? If so, it sounds like your battery went into sleep mode. A lithium charger will wake them up. I have heard also that you can run jumper cables from another 12v lithium to the battery that is asleep to wake it up.

I do not have lithium batteries so I do not have first hand knowledge about this but I have read quite a bit about lithium.

Maybe someone else will chime in

Is the issue really battery related? It may sound dumb but is your shifter in neutral? Is your lanyard kill switch hooked up in the correct position? I've had times when everything "looked" okay when in reality something was slightly off. Just a thought.

First off you need a good multimeter or volt meter. The difference between 12v and 13v is huge. 12v is under 10% capacity and 13v is only 30% capacity. Fully charged and rested should read 13.4v for 99-100%

The starting battery is 12v lithium. The shifter and lanyard are good so I might research more on the battery being in sleep mode. Once I hooked the charger that's all it took, and I had power. It's a single 12v 10amp charger and it's still red and charging. I really appreciate everyone chiming in.