When I was
learning to sail on the
Hudson River (in club 420s), the instructors used to make the
kids do a drill called "emergency squall procedures". The point was to drill with what any two-person crew should do in case they were caught away from port in a storm. The procedure involved the crew heaving-to, dropping the
mainsail, putting the boom in the
water (as a potential
lightning conductor), and covering themselves with the limp
mainsail. Fortunately, no one in that
sailing school has ever had to use this for real.
Fast-forward a few years. I'm sailing my father's J/24 on the river in the Tappan Zee area, between Ossining and Haverstraw, with two of my good friends. The nice thing about this area of the river is its calm nature - very rarely do we have major storms that cause damage to boats on the river. We were sailing home after a short day trip of about 5 miles, when I noticed that a major storm was bearing down on us. The
boat was already overpowered with the 130
Genoa, and the
wind was stiffening to about 20 kts. We heard tons of thunder and saw a few flashes of
lightning in the distance, so I decided we should not try to sail through and instead should find a safe place to ride out the storm. By this time it had begun to rain quite hard -
water was pouring off of the mainsail. We dropped our
sails and threw out the
anchor just off of a peninsula that juts out into the river, giving us some protection. Remembering the procedure from
sailing school, I decided to take our
spinnaker pole, which was already on
deck, and put one end in the water with the other end still on the
mast ring (on the J/24, the boom does not reach the water over the gunwales). WE hunkered down for about an hour and
rode out the storm, and thankfully we were not hit by lightning.
I am wondering what you guys think about what we did and whether you have any similar experiences with
electrical storms. I have been doing a little reading and have seen several stories of boats being hit by lightning, but most of these were when the boats were at the
dock and had no physical grounding. In all cases the
electrical systems were fried and in some cases the high voltage even burned large holes in the hulls of
fiberglass boats. However, I have not found any stories of people who have more direct experience. Is the
emergency squall procedure worth it on the little boats? Would my procedure have provided any significant protection if we had been hit?
Just some electrical reference about the
boat - The
mast and
spinnaker pole are both
aluminum and the boat is equipped with a minimal
electrical system - nav lights,
cabin lights, and that's about it. None of it is hooked up or working, being currently under
repair. There are two wires from a light halfway up the mast all the way down to the mast seat on the inside of the
hull, which has a metal plate that the mast sits on. The standing
rigging and all the
deck fittings are bolted through the deck and there are no deck fittings that connect the deck and topsides. There is no lightning protection system onboard.
Lightning and Boats
This is one interesting perspective that I found online, but of course it's only one
GETTING ZAPPED
Another interesting link.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts!