Well I had this converstion with a friend and he said that he had seen a boat struck with lighting  and it glowed like a xmass tree and when they went up to help they could see that all the fittings had been blown off of the boat.

The guy was ok as the fiberglass insulated him. I think if u r in a storm just try not to touch any of the metal on your boat.

I wouldn't be happy clinging on to an aluminium, steel or even lead keel sticking up from an otherwise flattish sea.

Probably best to find a boat with a slightly higher mast and sit next to them as they'll get hit instead

The Merlin class association used to run training events on Lake Bala. We about to start a practice race when the first rumbles of thunder were heard - the storm was obviously coming our way rapidly up the lake. We headed for shore along with several others but the start sequence was not abandoned and most boats stayed on the lake. A few minutes later the storm arrived and one boat was hit by lightning. It came down the mast and charred the hull on the way to its exit point at the transom but the damage was apparently only cosmetic. The crew were wide-eyed but unhurt. At the time I thought the trainers were daft to continue with the start sequence and that remains my opinion today.

I will also tell a less cheerful lightning story. In my early teens I belonged to the scouts & I went to one large camp with several hundred boys from all over the county where I lived. There was a big thunderstorm and two brothers leaned on the tent poles as they watched the storm. The tent was struck by lightning and both lads were killed outright. That clearly has implications on what could happen with a metal mast and a direct hit.

I've not studied this in depth, but in all my time as a sailor I've not heard of anyone dying as a result of lightning strike in a boat.

Lots of reports on pretty lights and mastop fittings disapperaring, but with the nice easy route to the sea and all that rubber, why the electricity should 'choose' to pass through a crew I don't know.

Perhaps someone could compare likelihood of dying from lightning strike and from being trapped under your boat by your trapeze harness, results copied to ISAF, although this could kickstart massive redundancies in mast builders the world over...

the best thing to do is to capsize the boat if at sea and caught in a storm and as you are in water i think you will be fine!

As long as you've got time to do it!

One of my friends was windsurfing in Normandy with some mates, quite a few years ago. There were a few darks clouds on the horizon and, with the first rumbles, they decided to head back to the beach. A thunderbolt came out of nowhere, hit my friend's mast and fried him! His boom kept the inprint of his hands and his swimsuit melted on his skin  OUCH

He arrested several times in the ambulance on the way to hospital. Fortunately, he's a GP and was sailing with colleagues. They CPR-ed him and kept him alive...

It took him a long time to recover but he still sails. Keen or what?

Yep! you should see his bottom!!   

(just a friend, long time ago, way before contender443 )

There was an instance in Australia last year when a Laser was struck by lightning and the poor guy was blown out of the boat. Blew him about 30ft, holed and delaminated the boat.

Unless you are in a Faraday cage, you can get hurt by lightning.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/26/1075087964361.html?oneclick=true - http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/26/1075087964361.html ?oneclick=true

So how many times had he been struck by lightning in order to test this theory?

If you are a boat when a big bolt strikes directly, you are going to be fried whatever you do. Lightening strikes of up to 280,000 amps and 80 million volts have been recorded. 280,000 amps is going to explode anything in it's path. Minor strikes are survivable; big ones aren't. It's a lottery.

What!!! Water conducts electricity very well!! You're best staying in the boat, not touching anything conductive (i.e. metal) and hoping the strike isn't very big...

Stefan's right, any major hit will explode most insulators - which is why you shouldn't stand near a tree in a thunder storm, cos it'll explode!!

Max

But we are also made mostly from salty water, so we are quite good conductors too. I agree capsizing will greatly reduce the chance of a strike, but I still think if you are unlucky enough to be in the area of a major strike, you are toast.

Fancy a sail at night, off the Atlantic coast?

You'll see more awesome pix on http://ppfeyte.free.fr/orages/storm3.html - http://ppfeyte.free.fr/orages/storm3.html .

Anyway, I thought there were grounding devices made for sailing boats and yachts. Are they any good?

We were on the Broads years ago on my Grandparents motor cruiser.  One night on Ranworth the boat on the next mooring was struck.  Apparently that lit up like a Christmas Tree (I was asleep at the time).  In the morning rowed over to it and several strands in the wire rigging had let go, the wooden mast was slightly charred and there were burn marks across the wooden hull from the deck (where shrouds meet deck) to the waterline.  Fortunately wasnt anyone onboard.

When I hear about people in dinghies getting killed regularly by lightening I'll start to worry.  Until then its not going to stop me, life is never going to be risk free and I resent those who campaign for or implement policy to reduce minute risks.  Common sense is the way forward not over-regulation causing a nanny-state!

Who is doing that then? 

For a start all the lentilists who are campaigning for lower speed limits on roads, more speed cameras etc.  I agree that one solution to the position we are in now is to put speed limits at such a level that even with people tailgaiting, suddenly changing lanes without looking or indicating (which I've seen numerous times in the last week); and to allow for the worst case scenario when visibility is down to 40m or so.  But this would put speed limits at about 30 on motorways!  It would be the next step towards a nanny state society that is well on its way already.

What we need to do (imo) is retrain drivers to think, but not about whether they are over an arbitrary limit, but about what speed is safe considering the car, their ability as a driver and the conditions at the time; and in some situations that is higher than current limits.  I would like to see traffic police given the funding instead of camera partnerships; because cameras don't pick up me doing 75 while trailing the boat, they don't catch people tailgating, and they don't catch people who shouldn't have passed their test.

Thats enough of a rant about motoring.  The winter before last, while I was still at school (in 6th form) the heating in the school broke down.  Strickly speaking the school should have closed because of the temperature in the buildings; it didn't but I know of other schools that did in similar circumstances.  Whats wrong with wearing a t-shirt under your shirt, or a jumper on top I wonder.  It is absolutely daft and such rules/legislation (whatever they are) shouldnt have been implemented in the first place.

Ah, so absolutely nothing to do with this thread then.

Not really, no.  But you asked who was trying to create a society that was as risk free as possible and I was mearly obliging.

We should definatly stop changing things to mitigate the risks.

remove that weather radar, stop ensuring that the different parts of aircraft are bonded together, stop them fitting static wicks to the trailing edges of wings and tails, get rid of the sheilding on the electronic systems. All these things add weight and increase the cost of air travel.

Get rid of these things I want to go back to the good old days when getting struck by lightning when flying was dangerous rather than just anoying

Thanks BNS! We went on to drink huge amounts of beer that night. For some reason our results weren't quite as good the next day, at one point, and I'm not joking here, my crew had to remind me to breathe.

I love sailing.