Date: 9/2/2007
Name: Al Paul
email: al.paul@sbcglobal.net
subject:Lightning
An excellent web site on lightning and sailboats is www.thomson.ece.ufl.edu/lightning. Basically it says the SJ 21 has a big problem. The whole thing is getting a good ground connection from mast to the water. Those boats with iron keels have no problem but our fiberglass keel with the encapsulated lead poses a big problem. You'd have to set up ground plates around the hull below the water line. If I were dumb enough to be out in a lightning storm the only thing I can think of is to attach the anchor chain to the mast and drag the anchor in the water. In fresh water the situation is much worse than in salt. Anyway, in all my many years of sailing neither I nor anyone that I know of has ever been struck. Just lucky I guess.
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