Lightning Protection, pros and cons

[Cyrus Safdari]

Originally Posted by kivanc

In fact there is a lightning prevention solution which has been used on over 1300 sites for the past 12 years with 100% success. This solution has also been applied on over 100 boats for the past 3 years with 100% success.

And now the same solution is delivered with 100% money paybak guarantee which is the first time ever in lightning protection industry.

I cannot write down the name as an employee of the manufacturer because last time when I did, I was banned from the forum.

The only thing that I can say is there is a lightning prevention solution and there is no point of praying and waiting for the strikes to hit somewhere else. Anybody who wants to see the link can send me a message.

Regards,

KK

That's too bad because I'd think we would all be interested in such a product but I would be far more interested in how a company proves 100% efficacy. To do that you'd have to show *not just* that boats which installed this product were not struck but that they *would have been struck* if not for this product. Considering how random lightning is, it would be interesting to see how your company can show this. Lots of boats don't get struck by lightning, out of sheer luck not *because* of any gizmos installed.

[kivanc]

Originally Posted by Cyrus Safdari

That's too bad because I'd think we would all be interested in such a product but I would be far more interested in how a company proves 100% efficacy. To do that you'd have to show *not just* that boats which installed this product were not struck but that they *would have been struck* if not for this product. Considering how random lightning is, it would be interesting to see how your company can show this.

Similar to what you have asked, not for sailboats but for a field receiving many more lightning strikes-telecom towers, we have done field tests tracked by lightning detectors during the r&d studies. Those were good indicators of the performance of the solution besides the hv laboratory tests.

[Cyrus Safdari]

Originally Posted by kivanc

Similar to what you have asked, not for sailboats but for a field receiving many more lightning strikes-telecom towers, we have done field tests tracked by lightning detectors during the r&d studies. Those were good indicators of the performance of the solution besides the hv laboratory tests.

Good indicator is not the same as 100% certainty attributable to the product. Correlation v. Causation. One is inductive reasoning other is deductive ( "Because of this product, it is impossible for lightning to strike a boat" versus "since no boat with this product were hit then that must be specifically because of this product")

I don't doubt that there are land based product that hugely reduce lightning strike damage (not prevent strikes) but I doubt that such products exist for boats. I'm skepitcal.But I'm not any expert.

Also your money back guarantee is indeed a form of insurance. You're the insurer. A certain no of boats every year get hit, most don"t. To provide a money back guarantee you just need to sell enough product to cover the cost of the ones that install the product and get hit anyway. Anyone can do that if they run the percentages even if they don't sell a product per se just collect premiums, which is what insurance companies do (however ins. co.s are regulated so you can be sure they'll be in existence and solvent if you have a claim)

[kivanc]

Originally Posted by Cyrus Safdari

Good indicator is not the same as 100% certainty attributable to the product. Correlation v. Causation. One is inductive reasoning other is deductive ( "Because of this product, it is impossible for lightning to strike a boat" versus "since no boat with this product were hit then that must be specifically because of this product")

I don't doubt that there are land based product that hugely reduce lightning strike damage (not prevent strikes) but I doubt that such products exist for boats. I'm skepitcal.But I'm not any expert.

Also your money back guarantee is indeed a form of insurance. You're the insurer. A certain no of boats every year get hit, most don"t. To provide a money back guarantee you just need to sell enough product to cover the cost of the ones that install the product and get hit anyway. Anyone can do that if they run the percentages even if they don't sell a product per se just collect premiums, which is what insurance companies do (however ins. co.s are regulated so you can be sure they'll be in existence and solvent if you have a claim)

If 1300+ applications with no strike(all of which had been hit by lightning several times before the applications - that's why rhe clients asked for a.solution) is not a proof, no strike in laboratory is not a proof, no strike during field tests is not a proof, I don't know what is.

I am not here to market the product. I am just trying to inform you that attracting lightning strikes on lightning rod is not a solution, but keeping lightning strikes away from the boat is. And there is a product achieving this with no failure. Naturally the decision is the end-users.

Thank you.

Regards,
KK

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by Cyrus Safdari

There is no such thing as lightning protection. Nothing will dissuade or prevent it. Nothing will minimize damage. Much of the claimed methods will actually make things worse. Bronze plate on hull? Great until it gets superhot and blows a hole in your keel. The bolts holding it will alone cook surrounding fiberglass. Chain or wire thrown over side? Lighting jumps around. There is no accounting for it. There is just too much energy. It will fuse engine bearings.

Lightning myth is that it follows path of least resistance. Sure but only after trying out all other paths.

Anecdotal claims are many none are reliable. Best thing to do is not get hit. That's all.

> Best thing to do is not get hit. That's all.

Do you mean: take down your mast and never go out on the water? Or should we invoke some form of "divine intervention" to avoid lightning? Maybe sprinkle the boat with holy water? Hoist garlic up the mast?

Benjamin Franklin (the inventor of the lightning rod) encountered this logic. It came mostly from religious people: "If it be God's will to smite thee with lightning - nothing can prevent it!" Ironically, since churches were often the highest building in a city, they were hit most often: https://oddlyhistorical.wordpress.co...ightning-rods/

As a broadcast engineer, who worked for a decade in installations that had high towers and in buildings at the tower base that were stuffed full of electronics, I saw countless direct hits on our towers - usually with no damage at all besides singed tower paint and the smell of ozone in the transmitter building. My personal record was a count of 20 direct hits in one night. We took lightning protection seriously - and it worked. Or was it maybe the red and white paint on the towers that warded off the evil? ;-)

Death and taxes are inevitable. Lightning damage is not.

[crazyoldboatguy]

We took lightning protection seriously - and it worked.



Death and taxes are inevitable. Lightning damage is not.[/QUOTE]



So, you took

Lightning protection seriously - and it worked. Great news!

Care to share your secret?

[sailorladd]

If there is no such thing as lightning protection, I and my brother should be dead by now, or at least severely burnt... as I mentioned in a previous reply to this very thread, I sailed across the ITCZ (Intertropical conversion zone ) for those of you in .... Rio Linde and all with the same yacht, the one I built in a backyard in South Africa...I mention this because I know exactly what went into that boat, where every nut, bolt,nail and screw went and I knew after questioning people in the know, and reading countless books and articles about boat building and rigging in particular, that lightning will find the highest object in the sky, that happens to be in its vicinity when it conducts to the earth (the biggest earthing plate we know of , and will strike that object, be it a tree, a building or in my case a yacht mast top (made from 316 stainless steel.)

I love telling this story because no one believes me , but I was there, as was my twin brother when I was not single handing, and we both witnessed our mast top being struck not once but several times.

OK,I was probably foolish to do this, but as sailors who have crossed these (dreaded doldrums or horse latitudes, as this is when the sailors used to eat their horses after almost starving from a lack of food and later the US Navy, believe it or not, used to gather giant tortoises at the Galapagos islands and stowed them live in the holds of their ships for this very occasion as well...) and as a way of relieving the hot, still, tedious boredom of these infuriating long spells of absolute windless calm, we would search for the biggest local thunderstorm, big purple black clouds isolated and scattered about on the horizon, and if it was in the direction of where we were headed, we would turn on the precious diesel engine and motor over into these local squally storms...

Suddenly it would be pouring with more rain and bigger raindrops than you have EVER seen!.Gone was the boredom!, gone was the sweltering humid heat!, we would allow the rain to wash down the decks and the mainsail that we had just raised and hoist up the topping lift , making a huge funnel out of the mainsail, and we would allow this pure rain water to land on deck just before the water tank trap, and catch all the freshwater we could handle...if time permitted we would then have a lovely ice cold shower from this funnel, but we had to be quick because often there would be wind accompanying this storm and the jib would be then be hoisted up and invariably we would be going on one wild sail, the seas as flat as pancakes, the wind speed would vary between twenty to thirty knots but after a wild chase, it could settle down for an all night steady blow at maybe ten or fifteen knots and the sailing was magnificent ...depending on the size of the storms, we could sail all of thirty or forty miles! I mention numerous incidents like these in my book.

Also what accompanied these storms was bolts of lighting, and when that happened the showering was abandoned and we would take care not to be too exposed on deck...

Always the antennae of the three radios were disconnected and if the engine was not running the isolation switch would be off...and sometimes we would hear a loud bang or a pop and if this happened at night there would be an eerie green aura around the top of the mastplate where the strike had hit...the forestay which is attached to the mast plate tangs with Norseman swages, the stainless steel 316 cable runs down to another Norseman and is secured to the stainless steel crans iron at the end of the wooden bowsprit. under this cranse iron a heavy galvanized chain runs down to the stainless bobstay chainplate that is virtually always under water, or part of it is, and this is the path that the lightning takes into the water...thanks for reading.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by crazyoldboatguy

We took lightning protection seriously - and it worked.



Death and taxes are inevitable. Lightning damage is not.

So, you took

Lightning protection seriously - and it worked. Great news!

Care to share your secret?[/QUOTE]


The lightning protection triad:


1. Bonding: prevent side-strikes by assuring a low impedance path between all conductive paths. Connect all bonded systems to a single "common ground" point to prevent AC/RF ground loops.

2. Grounding: provide a low impedance path to earth.

3. Suppression: provide an arc-path to ground that will conduct destructive voltages from developing on un-grounded signal paths and AC mains supply entering the facility:

• gas arc suppressors
• "jacobs ladder" suppressors on the RF feed to the towers (also frequently seen on AC power distribution systems)
• metal oxide varistors
• zener diodes
• isolation transformers with high breakdown voltages
• cable shielding (grounded only on one end of the cables to prevent ground loops)
• isolation of subsystems in grounded metal cabinets
• High voltage (often mica) bypass capacitors
• RF cabling (flat strap) for carrying lightning currents to ground
• Separation of "signal" conductors from "supply" conductors
• Providing a path to ground on signal and antenna conductors to prevent static build-up (this can be a very high impedance - one megaohm resistors are commonly seem for this task)
• Treating lightning as RF energy - NOT DC. More on this below...

Note: I use the term "impedance" - not "resistance". That's because lightning is RF, not DC -- illustrated by the fact that damage can occur not from a direct hit, but instead by a hit some distance away that induces a current in the protected system.

Creating a low impedance path entails keeping grounding conductors as straight as possible. All bends, and to a lesser extent round conductors, are seen by lightning as a series inductor - which produces inductive reactance - increasing impedance and decreasing the effectiveness of the path to ground. If bends must exist, the radius of bends should be as large as possible. Flat strap ground conductors are better than round wires.

Of the three items in the triad, bonding is most important. If lightning hits a system (vessel) and raises its potential a million volts above ground, and that entire system is so well bonded that no differences in potential (voltages) are created between system elements: nothing happens to that system. Thermal damage potential is then limited to the strike point and the discharge-to-ground point on the system.

[kivanc]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

So, you took

Lightning protection seriously - and it worked. Great news!

Care to share your secret?

The lightning protection triad:


1. Bonding: prevent side-strikes by assuring a low impedance path between all conductive paths. Connect all bonded systems to a single "common ground" point to prevent AC/RF ground loops.

2. Grounding: provide a low impedance path to earth.

3. Suppression: provide an arc-path to ground that will conduct destructive voltages from developing on un-grounded signal paths and AC mains supply entering the facility:

• gas arc suppressors
• "jacobs ladder" suppressors on the RF feed to the towers (also frequently seen on AC power distribution systems)
• metal oxide varistors
• zener diodes
• isolation transformers with high breakdown voltages
• cable shielding (grounded only on one end of the cables to prevent ground loops)
• isolation of subsystems in grounded metal cabinets
• High voltage (often mica) bypass capacitors
• RF cabling (flat strap) for carrying lightning currents to ground
• Separation of "signal" conductors from "supply" conductors
• Providing a path to ground on signal and antenna conductors to prevent static build-up (this can be a very high impedance - one megaohm resistors are commonly seem for this task)
• Treating lightning as RF energy - NOT DC. More on this below...

Note: I use the term "impedance" - not "resistance". That's because lightning is RF, not DC -- illustrated by the fact that damage can occur not from a direct hit, but instead by a hit some distance away that induces a current in the protected system.

Creating a low impedance path entails keeping grounding conductors as straight as possible. All bends, and to a lesser extent round conductors, are seen by lightning as a series inductor - which produces inductive reactance - increasing impedance and decreasing the effectiveness of the path to ground. If bends must exist, the radius of bends should be as large as possible. Flat strap ground conductors are better than round wires.

Of the three items in the triad, bonding is most important. If lightning hits a system (vessel) and raises its potential a million volts above ground, and that entire system is so well bonded that no differences in potential (voltages) are created between system elements: nothing happens to that system. Thermal damage potential is then limited to strike point and the discharge-to-ground point on the system.[/QUOTE]


If you want to attract lightning strikes all clauses are correct especially about bonding all metal parts together and having a reliable grojnding system. That is, if you are comfortable with having the strikes closr to you.

Lightning is a conductive channel between the storm cloud and the boat mast. There are 2 ingredients to form this channel; negative streamers from the cloud and positive streamers from the boat mast. When these charge groups in form of streamers meet eachother, they develop the lightning channel.

In today's technology, it is not possible to block the streamer from the cloud yet. However, it is possible to avoid the formation of upward streamers by using products which I cannot mention here. They have been applied to a number of sites which I cannot mention here, and the success result is a percentage which I cannot give here.

I am also been told that I cannot give any further details regarding the functional details of this solution. I am only limited with sharing technical knowledge about lightning here.

Regards,
KK

[Cpt Pat]

I might fill in some of KK's blanks...


Here in the US, just drive by any National Guard armory and notice how there are many closely-spaced lighting rods on top of the roof ridge line and along the roof perimeters of "certain" buildings. I'll leave it to the reader to guess why.

[Mr B]

When you get hit with one of these,
Will your counter measures work or not,

[crazyoldboatguy]

The lightning protection triad....

Of the three items in the triad, bonding is most important. If lightning hits a system (vessel) and raises its potential a million volts above ground, and that entire system is so well bonded that no differences in potential (voltages) are created between system elements: nothing happens to that system. Thermal damage potential is then limited to the strike point and the discharge-to-ground point on the system.[/QUOTE]


Very interesting. Have you seen such a set up on a sailing vessel?

[a64pilot]

I believe everything on my IP is bonded, I have been told that was to help protect it from lightning damage.
However I am to put it mildly, very suspicious as it would seem logical that the bonding would have to be very large diameter cabling to carry that kind of amps, and it’s not.
So I’m thinking that even though every piece of metal is bonded, it’s not going to make much difference as it’s all bonded with what looks like 10ga wire.
Mast, all the chain plates, the metal tanks, the thru hulls of course and engine.

[crazyoldboatguy]

And, of course, if there are any bends, curves or corners in those cables reduces their effectiveness - or do I’m told. How do you do that on a sailboat?

[kivanc]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I believe everything on my IP is bonded, I have been told that was to help protect it from lightning damage.
However I am to put it mildly, very suspicious as it would seem logical that the bonding would have to be very large diameter cabling to carry that kind of amps, and it’s not.
So I’m thinking that even though every piece of metal is bonded, it’s not going to make much difference as it’s all bonded with what looks like 10ga wire.
Mast, all the chain plates, the metal tanks, the thru hulls of course and engine.

Bonding all metal parts is critically important. It lets lightning current run through a path.

However, in case of a vessel, salt is the major conducting element which attachs on everything and makes the whole boat a conducting surface. So in fact, you can't create a path to lightning current on a boat because everything is conductive and lightning current seeks the shortest way to reach to water.

For a random tower on the mountain for instance, you can partly predict where the current will leave the structure. On a boat, the path is not predictable, just like the potential damage in equipment.

Regards,
KK