[Rhodes22-list] sailing and lightning (long reply)

[Ronald Lipton]

Rummy,

   One of the interesting comments that Ewen thompson made on the
"Furling Sails" podcast, is that he knew of no lightning-induced
deaths on a sailboat.  I was surprised by this, but he claims to
have looked and found no cases. He believes that non-masted boats are
much more dangerous due to the chance of a direct strike near
the person.

I don't think that having the mast keel stepped or not makes much
difference.  The charges on a metal object can move in response to
hugh fields in the storm and the most direct path to ground will
still be through the mast, followed by a sideflash to the water through
the air or the fiberglass. The grounding of the mast through the keel
only helps in providing a more direct path to the water "ground".  If
there is an insulating fiberglass layer between the mast/keel and the
water the lightning will punch a hole in it.

I think going home is a good choice.

Ron

On Jul 29, 2006, at 8:27 PM, R22RumRunner at aol.com wrote:

> Art and all,
> This is a topic that comes up at least once every year. There are a 
> lot of
> people that have done extensive research on the topic and the general 
> consensus
>  is that nobody can say with any amount of certainty which is the best
> approach  for our boats.
> Since the R22 has a cabin top stepped mast and not a mast that goes to 
> the
> keel, I'm suggesting that it makes a lousy and probably an unlikely 
> target for
> lightning. I sail on an inland lake which increases the odds that I 
> will
> probably never get hit.
> Now, all that being said, I hate lightning and whenever there's even a
> slight chance for a storm, I'm at the dock and going home.
>
> Rummy
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