located at the bow for the windless never made much sense to me. You are just introducing to many variables into the system. Charge rates, voltage drop during the charge, wet environment different sized batteries and more. My run is just over 50 round trip and unless you have a huge boat, I'm thinking that's the way to go. In most cases you can size for voltage drop and end all the problems right from the start. My system has worked flawlessly for 36 years. The only things I have changed are the switch and the contractor. Never a problem, always works.