Hello

Gordie's picture
Submitted by Gordie on Mon, 08/04/2014 - 15:05

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Hi , Thank you for accepting me on your forum ,
I bought my mirror on Saturday and had my first try Yesterday ,
It was thunder and lightning, and the rain was heavy for up here in Fort William ,
Took some water aboard , not sure if it was rainwater though !
Looking foreward to getting back out again
Gordie

David Cooper

Mon, 08/04/2014 - 19:10

Hi, and welcome. I hope your luck holds. I've never tried the boat + lightning experiment myself, but it's good to know that other people are trying to give it a go. I wonder if it's best to fit wires from the ends of the shrouds down into the water or just to let it burn a hole through the hull. Has anyone found out?

curlew's picture

curlew

Sun, 02/17/2019 - 23:12

Hi David. I have occasionally been at sea in lightning conditions. I have bare copper wire cables I can twist on to the shrouds and drop into the sea. I am not very happy doing this! A few years back a navigation beacon was struck five minutes after I passed it. At night I try to lie near a big yacht in these conditions!
David

David Cooper

Mon, 02/18/2019 - 22:23

I've heard of a mast melting in a lightning strike and molten metal falling on people, so it's pretty extreme stuff - the shrouds might melt away in an instant too, but I suspect the lightning would continue to follow the same path it's established, and it prefers to take the route that lets it spread out soonest. That's why in a boat with a metal plate underneath connected to the mast you can still get lightning splitting its path within the hull and following pipes to the stern to exit there as well (including flowing through the exterior of the fuel tank without setting light to the fuel inside) - the electrons repel each other and want to split up, so if you can split them at the top of the shrouds and provide an easy route into the water, most of the current should follow those two paths rather than going on down the mast. The mast may then fall down, so not earthing (or watering) the forestay is probably wise as it will hopefully survive and stop it falling on you.

sail_and_oar's picture

sail_and_oar

Mon, 08/04/2014 - 20:30

Hello Geordie, welcome to our forum

I got a bit caught out in a thunderstorm off the Sussex coast in a Wayfarer. The wind came up kind of sudden, We double reefed the main and changed to the storm jib. Waves got a bit big for a while.

As far as strategies go it seemed to work.

Not as nasty as fog.

Cliff

62816inBerlin's picture

62816inBerlin

Tue, 08/05/2014 - 12:13

If you had thunder and lightning and strong wind AND stayed upright, you've nothing to fear now!
Cheers,
Gernot H.

PuffinInTegel's picture

PuffinInTegel

Mon, 02/18/2019 - 22:00

As this post is a bit odd, I have xxxed out the URL. We do not really appreciate advertising here anyway.
If anyone is really interested in the plywood source, please send Edward2512 a personal message, but be careful about clicking on an insecure web URL and make sure you have an up-to-date virus checker on your system.
Sorry Edward2512, if you're being paid by the click, but we have to be careful these days, with all those Russians, Indians etc. trying to plug advertisements and malware.
Cheers,
Gernot H.