Please forgive my ignorance in this matter as it will quickly become apparent. My boat battery doesn't have enough charge to start the motor. The radio and electric water pump are working, but when I try to start the motor it turns over once or twice and that's it, then makes a continuous clicking sound. I connected it with cables to my car battery (car motor running at idle) and the boat motor started no problem.
I'm assuming that the boat battery works the same as a car's as far as getting charged ie. there's some kind of alternator in the motor. In this case it would seem logical that leaving the boat running for half an hour should charge the battery enough to be able to start the motor in the future. This is not the case, a week later the battery doesn't have enough juice again to start the motor.
How can I figure out whether the battery has gone bad and doesn't hold a charge, or it's not being charged by the motor, without taking the battery to some service place? It was a really tight fit getting the battery inside the console and battery box and I'd rather not mess with it. The motor is an outboard two stroke Mercury 90.