Has anyone researched/used the notion of using a thick copper wire, about the diameter of a battery cable, and attaching it to the back stay and at the other end cutting back the insulation about 6-8" and lowering that end about 2' in the water. I had read about this approach but never tried it. I've read horror stories about using plates bolted on the hull only to have the lightening use that as a path to earth and in the meantime blowing the plate right out of the hull. I guess this debate will go on forever for as long as sailors have big sticks made of metal sticking straight up into the sky. Joe Seafrog M17 ----- Original Message ----- From: "DavidCPatterson Patteson" <davidcpatterson@msn.com> To: <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 11:21 AM Subject: Re: M_Boats: montgomery_boats Digest, Vol 79, Issue 3
A general question for the list: what have sailor's done to handle grounding for lightning protection on their Montgomeries? I was sailing on Lake Granby in Colorado, at 8280 or so feet above the sea. A thunderstorm passed nearby, seemingly very low overhead at that altitude. Static snapping from the backstay to my back alerted me to the electrostatic charge accumulating on Cloud Girl, my M17. When I sat forward I could hear static begin to rhythmically snap from the tip of an anchor on the cockpit bench to one of the hinges there. Needless to say, I headed more near the shore, where something was higher than my mast, in this case a rocky and tree-covered mountain side. My friend Mike called me later to tell me he was experiencing the same phenomenon on his M15, La Pequenita, at a dock a few miles away across the lake, where he couldn't touch his boat without a discharge of static. The next day of my four day mini-cruise up there I reached away from another storm, this one showing lightning on the mountain peaks to the north. Since then, I have been researching static dissipators and grounding plates and braided copper straps and so on. Please share your system if you have installed one. What were the elements, how did you route them, where did you put the external grounding plate (if you used one), etc? Chance of being hit by lightning in a sailboat, I read, is .02% or so. Actually pretty high. Higher if it has an inboard engine, or you are in Florida. Or perhaps on a high mountain lake in an electrical storm! I would appreciate any system descriptions. Thanks, David, M17 #393 _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
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