lightning strikes/ avoiding them?

[fastcat435]

You are definately Right Alan It wil not help with a drect hit but doing nothing is not enough Making sure that the mast , the highest point on the boat is directly earthed with the water may prevent some damage in the boat and that is what we are trying to do. On all fastCats we ahve taken this measure , A round tipped rod on top of the mast with a copper wire down leading into the sea
Have a good weekend

[kenackr]

For those who advocate use of chain for a conductor, think again.
Chain links provide a relatively small surface area of contact from one link to another and the links are prone to move (like when being dragged in the water) so the contact surface area is constantly changing.

Those facts, coupled with the inevitable corrosion that occurs on the chain's surface, basically makes a poor conductor compared to copper cable of the same diameter as the chain links.

Chain is better than air as a conductor, but as Wheels so aptly points out, there's just too much energy in lightning to contain it to any single path we know of at this time.

Who knows, someday they might look back at us and laugh because we can't control a potent force of nature, but it won't be very soon.

[Tropic Cat]

Isn't it amazing that in this day and age, we can't protect our boats from mother nature?

[Alan Wheeler]

Hmmm, in some way, I would like to think a few things remain out of mans control. It is nice to still be in awe of one or two things.

[fastcat435]

That same reason for the poor connectivity made us decide to hang down a piece of 12 mm Dyform into the water when lightning is present connected to the bottom of the mast , it is mounted with a thru hull fitting and when not nessecary we can lift it out of the warter with a line run from the trampoline
The contact surfaces on a chain are minimal if any make contact at all.
Letrs assume that there are 100 parts where the links of chains connect with eachother and all of these are slightly corroded and these contact surfaces are minimal anyway since the links are made of round metal the resistance is enormous probably close to 100 %

[Joli]

All you can do with lightning is try to minimize the static build up but we still have some damga every year. I think the damage is from side stikes since the rig has never shown damage from a direct hit. We have unbonded the thru hulls since corrosion is not an issue for us in fresh water but blowing a thru hull could be a bigger problem if we take a direct hit. We will rebond when in salt.

Not sure what to think of carbon spars and lightning. The problem seems to be delam that is not apparant if a painted carbon spar is hit.

Lightning is funny stuff for sure.

[CC45]

I'm a wooden power boater, she is 13.0 ft above wtr line. Over 14 on top of the radar, not including my ent.'s All every one is thinking about are copper, tin, aluminum, etc. My question is, how much of these and more of metals that make up your aluminum mast's. Every metal that has to be made, the ingredients for steel, aluminum, SS, and so on. They can not have accuracy for the same exact amounts needed to be 100% accurate.
So now, how much does each ingredient's ingredient is there and of what. This is the purity of ingredients. I was a trucker for a flat bed hauler, and visited all types of mill's and asked questions like this with no one really knowing those answers. Like we all said, lightning is very funny.