[Public-List] lightning protection & grounding plates

[Gordon Laco]

Hi there - 

We sail in the upper Great Lakes - we are out in at least one memorable
electrical storm each year.  If anyone wants to read an account of how our
A30 coped with what we later learned were 80knt winds, write to me off list
and I will send you the account I wrote for our club's newsletter a couple
of years ago.

I should add to the lightening stories I wrote earlier... Those four are the
only ones I know of first hand in 35 years of sailing.

Gord



> Dan Landrigan wrote:
>>    Quick question for you more experienced sailors. What protection do
>>    you take against lighting strikes?
> 
> Clean living.
> 
> A decade or more ago, I did a lot of research into the topic.  (I was
> also researching lightning protection for work, at the time.)  The
> biggest rub is that to get a good ground connection to the water, you
> need two square feet of clean copper.  Not only is this a large area,
> but it won't be clean for long.
> 
> As Gord says, people get lucky and unlucky both ways.  Given that
> there's not sure-fire solution, taking the easier route of doing nothing
> seemed prudent for me.
> 
> One thing you should /NOT/ do--is to ground your rig to the
> through-hulls.  In my research I came across an incident where this had
> been done, and a lightning strike blew out every through-hull.  This is
> an indication that halfway measures are likely to be worse than none at all.
> 
> Where are you located?  With the exception of southern Florida,
> lightning strikes are actually relatively uncommon in the United States.
> 
> - George


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