No Keel Bolts - How to Ground for Lightning ?

[Stillraining]

Originally Posted by SailFastTri

Yes -- quite well. Look at your lead-acid battery terminals.

Duh!....thanks for not mentioning how stupid I are...

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

If i am reading this report of SailFastTri correctly, the lightning made an exit at other points as well as the dynaplate (engine etc), and still fried the electronics.

What's the benefit in a plate then?

No damage to hull. That's MAJOR.

(I think bonding can reduce side flashes within the boat, and therefore crew safety, but don't believe anything can save the electronics if you get a direct hit, or even a near strike in some cases.)

A really effective bonding of all major metal components is very difficult to do unless it's done during manufacture, before interior liners and bulkheads are installed.

[SaltyMonkey]

Michael Kasten’s website is a good read, as brought to us by Gordo. Still can't visualize what the best practice would look like. Lots of technical stuff is presented in these threads and recommendations, but I need to actually see how someone implemented it to get an idea of what is a "good installation" vs somewhat suspect. Someone posted that 4 sq feet is necessary for a good ground, yet I see only 1 sq ft recommend for salt water, which seems to be the common ground plate size. Wonder if blow outs of plate occur because they were in fresh water at the time, which requires much more surface area.

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by SailFastTri

No damage to hull. That's MAJOR.

(snip) don't believe anything can save the electronics if you get a direct hit, or even a near strike in some cases.

(snip)

After further thought I take that back -- if you disconnect electronics and put them in a metal box (or oven) it should protect them in most cases.

So when you leave the boat or encounter a t-storm that would be a good tactic for protecting portable electronics. It would be good to have a portable handheld VHF and GPS when all else fails.

[sabray]

Kastens descriptionis the best Ive seen thanks Gord and all. That was really helpful.