Lightning

Precisely what happened to a head boat out of Huntington, NY when hit by lightning last summer during hail/water spout storm. Hit the antenna, blasted through the cockpit. Captain's hearing was gone for a while. Thankfully, no personal injury with clients - only costly electronics & minor structural damage.

About the only thing that might give you a "cone of protection" would be a heavy rod placed as high up as you can get it, connected to a heavy cable going to a large grounding plate mounted on the hull.

But I guess if it failed, it could blow a hole in the bottom of your boat.

A good friend of mine's father did some research into lighting protection for boats years ago. And he set up a antenna like rod that he could but up in bad weather that was high enough to form a "cone of protection" over the whole boat. It had a large cable that terminated with a plate of some kind that went right into the water overboard, as I recall, so the charge would, in theory, never entered the boat.

You have 21 computers on board!?

I've done a little reading on lightning protection. Lightning strikes have been found to generate strays that jump sideways inside a boat and put holes through everything in their path... including you!

A single lightning rod grounded to the bottom of the hull may give you peace of mind, but may be totally insufficient in a direct hit.

If I can find a particular article I will post the link. In this particular research, a cone of protection was created with multiple lightning rods placed around the boat. These were connected with a heavy gauge cable (0 or 00?) terminated at through hulls as close to the water line as possible. This has something to do with allowing the current to get to ground potential as soon and as quickly as possible.

Clearly, not an easy retro-fit!

Hi,

What do you call a bolt of Lightning that strikes a Ferro Cement Yacht?


A Plaster Blaster

Ouch! Even well sealed concrete will hold some moisture. If the lightning charge accessed the wire mesh there would be substantial heat generated. Or am I just imagining a ridiculously remote worst case?

Maybe it is a subject that could be suggested to the shows producers?

Edit: I just signed up to the Discovery Channel and posted that question in the Mythbusters section.

I wrote a piece on lightining protection for one of my publications. Let's see if I can sway the YF powers that be to let me repost it here.
Until then, watch out for that lightning. Mother Nature can be very fickle.

Just incase you do not get your article posted here, I will recap it..

CaptTom wrote a great article on the subject in the Triton paper after doing research with some very well known ship builders trying to find out what sort of lightening protection is used on some of these 30+ million dollar yachts. Bottom line.. the technology that is out there has not been proven and basically lightening protection for yachts is myths for Mythbusters (as that just happens be on now as I write this) Pausible?

Tom,

If it's OK with Lucy, it's OK with me.

Thanks C4.

Surprising is the fact that we can put a man on the moon and harness the power of the atom, we still cannot figure out this lightning thing.

With permission from and thanks to Yachtforums and The Triton, here's the story.

Hi,

Whilst I have great respect for John Dale- The brains behind ATLAS I find the Ft Lauderdale sales office statements a little bold given the huge currents that the units would be subject to given a strike.

You're welcome. Hope the info helps out.

Not sure about Storm scopes on boats.

On airplanes yes, because you are fast enough to fly away from a thunderstorm if you see one on the scope while IFR.

On a boat you will see it visually in day-time and see the lightening at night and can try to run.
If you get caught in a squall on the water, the storm scope may not help anyway..(Too late)

Perhaps the more experienced Captains on this here board have a different opinion on the Storm Scope..?

We were hit last fall while at the dock in our home port of Fort Lauderdale. Our boat has a sophisticated lightning arrestor at the high point of our antenna mast with a heavy cable leading to a massive ground plate in the hull.

Most systems were shut down at the time, including the MTU controls. It is the engineer's practice to shut down the breakers to the MTU's as well when in port. I had one of the flat screen monitors, the gyro, one depth sounder, and the AIS running. Also running was one of two SeaTel TV antennas.

All of the items that were swicthed on were damaged and had to repaired or replaced. Also, all three VHFs, which were off, had to be replaced. Most of the other systems seem to be OK, including the MTU controls.

In the future when I find myself caught out in an active lightning storm, I think that I will switch off my secondary and back up systems ie; one radar, second GPS and screens etc in order to preserve some use of the systems if we get hit again.

Capt Dave - M/Y KIPANY