I've taken lots of claims for
lightning. No I don't have a statistical database to say which types of boats & where, just my gut feeling from taking claims over the years. Seems like
Florida is where we have received most claims. Also seems also like more cats than monohulls have damage from
lighting strikes. The
builder of my
boat installs a strike-shield on all boats. He was getting lots of reports of
lightning strikes, since a lot of the
Maine Cats are in
Florida. The number decreased dramatically (maybe zero for the last 2 years, although one MaineCat 30 had a strike recently- I don't know if it was retro-fitted with the Strike-shield or not). The explanation for the increased strikes to Cats is that they are not usually as well grounded as a
monohull (no lead keel) and have a lot of attractive horizontal metal
parts like
steering and
cables running between the hulls.
If you haul your cat, ground it to the earth. Seems like many of the claims I take are for boats stored ashore. I took one where the lightning followed the path to the ground through the
hull to the jack stand- it blew out a nice hole in the bow.
And of course, you don't have to take a direct hit to be affected. The next
boat over in the marina can take a hit and your
electronics can get blown out.