Slight OT : Would you sail with this around?

Have not been out in a couple of weeks ... bummer!
Was excited to see a little wet stuff coming down this evening.

How often do you sail when there is lightning around?


Lightning0000 by PhotoByMark, on Flickr

_________________

I'd rather be sailing,
Mark.

Ok.. Everybody says to leave the lake.. Nobody wants to be hit... but yet I have seen this several times now... Out sailing.. A short storm forecasted... first little bolt chases everyone to shore.. Where they stand around by all the mast up sail boats and large trees.... waiting for the storm to pass...



Seen it a bunch of times... Seems to me like it would be safer on the water



But I dunno...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP2jCcSR1qo




I will shamefully admit pushing my luck when wind or fishing was really good.. but I can't say I would recommend it..

_________________
www.thehobiewayoflife.com

Yeah, me too - but have bailed a couple times too. Mainly cause of the wind.

_________________

I'd rather be sailing,
Mark.

We get caught in these squalls on the ocean here quite often. And we are always pretty nervous. But then I think.....the electricity is looking for the path of least resistance to the ground, which is the water.

there is a much higher resistance through a human body, and the plastic mast and sailboat are acutally insulators. It's a quicker route to ground to hit the water.

And that's what it will do.

_________________
Island life in the Devil's Triangle:
http://2gringos.blogspot.com/

There are many theories about lightning. What I understand the bolt is going for the highest object projecting out of the water i.e. the mast. However the bolt has to be pretty close to the boat to select the mast instead of the water. As the voltage is extremely high there is no way that one is protected by insulation. If the material is conductive or not has no impact on the bolt. I have great respect for the forces of lighting and would not leave the shore if there is a thunder storm.

_________________
Bo Karlberg
Taby
Sweden
Sail Tandem Island No P1787 in the Stockholm Archipelago (some 40,000 islands and rocks)

Errr, I don't think the mast is made of plastic.

_________________

Hey Mark
Not really that OT, imo. Anything that could ruin a perfect Hobie day is right on topic. Where I live lightning is as rare as a Fridge Salesman in the Arctic. However, I've sailed on Prairie Lakes where you can almost feel the charge in the air if the conditions are right.
This formula could help anyone that is wondering if the Sizzle and the Bang are close together or not.

http://www.greenwing.org/newgreenwing/a ... htning.htm

A truly 'Electrifying subject'
If the lighting is closer than a couple of miles, time to get off the Water if you can. If not remove your mast and stow it, and get the heck to land ASAP

Fred

_________________
Always looking for ways to make good things 'Gooder'

Basic Lightning 101:
Lightning is built up by static electricity if the condition are right in the atmosphere. On any given day, when the charge builds up to such a level, electrons look for the center of the planet (big molten Iron Ball) to connect to.
If you are unlucky to get between the source of the charge and the center of the earth, you get a brand new hairstyle (if you survive)
The charge on most lightning strikes can be in the Billions of Volts.
Grounding a Mast?
Not even worth considering it for the AI/TI. There are so many wet lines, metal contacts between you and the surface of the water, that there is no insulation to stop the arch that would hit the top of your mast and try to find the easiest way to ground. Considering, your cockpit is in the way... the charge will most likely zip down the mast and connect with the Mirage drive (path of least resistance)
On that concept, if one was to be stuck in a situation where there is overhead lightning (light and sound are the same), your safest place might just be on a tramp if you have one. Your wet suit, dry suit may help to insulate you (if it is dry). If you can try not to touch any metal, this might increase your chances.
But never allowing youself to get caught in such a dire situation in the first place might be far more realistic for survival.

However a 10 foot section of thick electrical cable that you can clip on your mast, wouldn't be a bad idea in areas that are prone to Sudden Lightning Storms.

Just some spare Electrons discharging from my head into this 'puter, to the Net, and eventualy going to the center of the planet (hoping)

Trinomite

_________________
Always looking for ways to make good things 'Gooder'

Lightning can travel more than ten miles horizontally before striking the surface!
Even if there are no clouds directly above you it can still hit you.
Hobie masts are carbon-fiber I believe.
A couple of lightning stories: my sister was sitting on the front steps of our house when a storm passed over. The bolt hit her, she almost died, no damage to the house.
My nephew and his buddy were fishing using carbon fiber rods. A storm came up and was passing by them a few miles away with clear sky above. All of a sudden their fishing lines actually began to float above the water with sparking along the line. Then both were hit with a discharge which jumped from the rod handles into their bodies. Both experienced burns...but there never was a bright flash and no thunder.
A few years ago I was sailing with a friend on Lake Superior on my buddy's fiberglas monohull. A storm passed over and lightning hit the mast, vaporized the antenna, traveled down the mast, burned out most of the electrical wiring, and blew out about twenty small craters in the gelcoat at water level. The mast was supposedly grounded. The repairman told us that every year he does lightning repair on 'grounded' hulls...I guess that the grounding plates just can't handle the amperage from a large bolt. Just two weeks later, a 44 foot monohull was sunk at the dock at the same marina when a six inch hole was blown completely through the hull.
Remember your Hobie is the highest structure in your area when sailing, with a lightning rod as a mast and ungrounded aluminum running all around you.
I don't go out if there is a possibility of any lightning...of course if the storm comes up while you are out...

I thought it was pretty rare to get hit, but it missed my by 2 feet once in the house- hit the antenna, jumped that wire and over to the water pipe where I was), and my buddies Whaler got hit sitting in the bay (lots of sailboats nearby as well!). Lots of holes in the hull, I'm sure if he was in it, he would have been hurt. Stay inside (its a little safer i think).

_________________
H18, H17 & Various motor boats

Weird way weird
As I mentioned I've almost gotten nailed by lightening in Alberta Canada.
Yet the fact that most of us are still here, it looks like we all survived.
It's kind of like the Japanese Tsunami, if you got hit, well I hope the Afterlife is better than where we are right now.
Snap I can think of a million ways to get killed on the ocean. Here's one of the least Favorite that my brother told me when he was in the Canadian Coast Guard:

35 years ago, A new owner of a 50' power yacht went out for the first time on his own with his wife after being shown how to operate his boat by the sales manager of the yacht brokerage. As this was the first cruise they had together, they both got rather tipsy on Champagne. The owner tripped over a line and fell overboard. As the wife did not have a clue on how to run the boat, she managed to turn the wheel as she ran circles around her husband while she watched him drown. This happened in English Bay, Vancouver, BC 10 minutes away from the Coast Guard Station. The wife didn't know how to use a VHF....
Bummer, sheit happens if your unlucky...

Trinomite

_________________
Always looking for ways to make good things 'Gooder'

Trinomite : Heck of a story there.

Lots of good discussions...

I would say that if you can, get off the water but sometimes that might not be possible. Could always take the mast down. I have taken it down on my TI while on the water and it is awkward to do but not that bad.

_________________

I'd rather be sailing,
Mark.

Many monohulls ground their metal masts to metal plates which are exposed or nearly exposed to the water. The grounding straps from the mast are bolted to the anchor bolts of the metal keel. A bolt can then travel down the mast and out into the water through the keel. Friends of mine who have an ungrounded monohull clip a large diameter metal cable to their mast and connect it to the metal anchor chain while they are anchored.
The metal cables which secure the mast can act as a protective 'Faraday cage', the same way as the metal in your car. The cables conduct the bolt into the mast and down the keel.
Unfortunately, our Hobies have an ungrounded conductive mast. The bolt will travel down the mast and then jump to the next conductive piece...the cross bars, akas, amas, or you.
Same advice given to golfers...don't stand out in the open...don't stand under a sheltering tree (your carbon fiber mast?)...get into covered shelter...a metal car, etc. Don't golf when thunderstorm's are passing by...don't kayak (if you can help it) either.

Yeah ... but then your noggin is the highest point

electricity has scared the crap out of me since I was 5 and got thrown across the room grabbing a frayed 110v lamp cord

In my area of usual sailing - the Long Island Sound and its harbors - its not uncommon at all during the summer to have late afternoon thunderstorms brew up. Having driven a convertible for years, I always keep an eye to the sky and approaching conditions. On the Hobie, I wont stray more than a mile or so from shore if the conditions are ripe for something to brew up. Seeing a storm line on the horizon means its time to skidaddle to TerraFirma for this boy

_________________
Alan W.

Papaya AI2 to replace my well worn V1
TheTwins - His/Hers 2007 Papaya Hobie Adventure Island's (v1.00.01)
.. and a Hobie Outback SUV

I didn't realize the mast was carbon. Thought it was fiberglass.
I'm really interested in these lightning discussions. I am retired from 40 years working on and under the ocean. I was on a lot of boats in a lot of storms. I've never had a boat I was on be struck by lightning. I have seen examples of boats hit by lightning, a couple burned to the water line. Some others with all the electronics fried. But maybe in 40 years I can think of personally seeing maybe five. Out of thousands and thousands of boats. And the boats that I've seen with damage were all in an area of other boats, a marina. Not on the open seas.

We look out our patio every day at a wrecked freighter, sitting on the bottom in six feet of water, steel masts and wheel house the highest thing for a radius of at least three miles. Steel. As well grounded as a boat mast can get.
I can see this from where I am sitting. The nearest structure is on the island in the background in this photo:



Most squalls approach our house from this direction. We often watch the approaching line of rain come across the freighter wreck on it's way to us. For the first year we were here I watched expectantly to see a lightning bolt hit this highest object for miles.
I know we've seen literally hundreds of lightning bolts hit the ocean in the three years we have lived in this house overlooking this wreck. We've seen them hitting the water on the other side of this wreck from us. And plenty of timess between us and it. And we have yet to see one hit it.

I think the tip of that mast is the shortest distance to ground for lightning. And yet the lightning here prefers to hit the water, bypassing the mast. I am beginning to think nobody really understands why lightning hits some few boats, and not others. I've read that grounding the mast so that the lightning has a direct route is best, but I am watching lightning ignore that scenario on a continuous basis.

_________________
Island life in the Devil's Triangle:
http://2gringos.blogspot.com/