I was caught recently in my 17' open boat in a severe lightning storm. I was rushing to get back to the dock at 40mph with a couple of kids on board. At one point I felt a tingle on my habds that were on the plastic wheel and of course it was pouring rain. Fortunately we made it back safely but one question came to mind after reviewing the days events. Does the speed of the boat or having the boat moving at all make any difference in whether one will receive a lightning strike?
Lightning Question
- Thread starter JackB
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When your numbers up, its up. Open water or river? We have more than our share of lighting and if I'm on the river and get caught in a thunderstorm I stay away from trees and just keep moving. Offshore just keep moving, generally I slow to avoid the "stinging rain".
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I paddled an Aluminum boat almost a mile with lightening hitting all around me.
There's no way to 'attract' it. The studies in the North FL 'lightening zone' documented that.
Think of a massive attraction between the clouds five miles or so above you and the 30 mile circle your sitting in the middle of!
Getting it to come to you is highly unlikely.
The Earth has lots of Metals so 'it' attracts.
But unless you happen to be right over something it likes, you are not in any danger.
Golfers seem to be able to do it though.
I have never figured out why lightening would hit on a Lake or the Ocean with seemingly no particular quality to attract.
Just that the storm was over that body, and it was a long ways to anything else.
Hi speed Photography shows lightening sometimes heads for earth, but at the last minute a mile hi streak of Lightening leaps out of the Earth and up to meet the Electron stream headed for Earth.
As far as the tingle goes, I was standing on my Cement porch in Louisian watching a Lightening storm.
Hitting all around me. Ball lightening rolling across the Treetops next to the lake. Lightening hitting Stumps out in the lake.
Suddenly a loud "SNICK" and the CrashBanBoom immediatly following it.
WOW!
My head started Buzzing, all my hair stood up and I felt weak suddenly.
OK, we'll go inside and watch the Storm from there.
In short, nobody in the world can say where it'l hit or where it wont.
There's no way to 'attract' it. The studies in the North FL 'lightening zone' documented that.
Think of a massive attraction between the clouds five miles or so above you and the 30 mile circle your sitting in the middle of!
Getting it to come to you is highly unlikely.
The Earth has lots of Metals so 'it' attracts.
But unless you happen to be right over something it likes, you are not in any danger.
Golfers seem to be able to do it though.
I have never figured out why lightening would hit on a Lake or the Ocean with seemingly no particular quality to attract.
Just that the storm was over that body, and it was a long ways to anything else.
Hi speed Photography shows lightening sometimes heads for earth, but at the last minute a mile hi streak of Lightening leaps out of the Earth and up to meet the Electron stream headed for Earth.
As far as the tingle goes, I was standing on my Cement porch in Louisian watching a Lightening storm.
Hitting all around me. Ball lightening rolling across the Treetops next to the lake. Lightening hitting Stumps out in the lake.
Suddenly a loud "SNICK" and the CrashBanBoom immediatly following it.
WOW!
My head started Buzzing, all my hair stood up and I felt weak suddenly.
OK, we'll go inside and watch the Storm from there.
In short, nobody in the world can say where it'l hit or where it wont.
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hey, don't forget that there are a lot of us boaters (like me) with 50' aluminum lightnng rods sticking out of our boats. They're called masts. I've slept thru many a nasty thunderstorm with that lightning rod literally 3' from my head.
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It's a Mystery.
In my Tech work I've seen some pretty expensive Electonic devices with a pile of "Krispy Kritters" in the bottom. Blown right off the Circuit boards.
Since I've been down south I've heard tales of the Lighting coming in the window or starting a fire in the barn...I'm not the guy who made the stuff so I cant say where it'l go after it comes down that mast, but I'll wager it would go to the first and easiest conductor it could find, before it'd jump a three foot air gap after a Hard Hairy Head lying on more high resistance.
Anytime you run a large amount of current through a wire (Lightening down your mast) there is a force field developed that can induce an action in another conductor nearby.
I've never seen this happen either, but it's possible that the Induced current discharge through your metal pipe bunk rail
could get you in the foot or whatever happend to be touching.
In my Pea sized brain, I think that Induction can be present in anything close enough to that mast. Your nice VHF can be a "Capicator" and store some stray lightening bolts.
You turn it on and a loud blast of static is the first thing you hear, it's probably telling you a tale about that last storm.
In my Tech work I've seen some pretty expensive Electonic devices with a pile of "Krispy Kritters" in the bottom. Blown right off the Circuit boards.
Since I've been down south I've heard tales of the Lighting coming in the window or starting a fire in the barn...I'm not the guy who made the stuff so I cant say where it'l go after it comes down that mast, but I'll wager it would go to the first and easiest conductor it could find, before it'd jump a three foot air gap after a Hard Hairy Head lying on more high resistance.
Anytime you run a large amount of current through a wire (Lightening down your mast) there is a force field developed that can induce an action in another conductor nearby.
I've never seen this happen either, but it's possible that the Induced current discharge through your metal pipe bunk rail
could get you in the foot or whatever happend to be touching.
In my Pea sized brain, I think that Induction can be present in anything close enough to that mast. Your nice VHF can be a "Capicator" and store some stray lightening bolts.
You turn it on and a loud blast of static is the first thing you hear, it's probably telling you a tale about that last storm.
I know of no correlation between the speed at which you are moving and the tendency to attract lightening. I would keep moving as fast as I could to get to shore and under cover.
My house has been hit be lightening at least twice that I know of.
George
My house has been hit be lightening at least twice that I know of.
George
Lightning takes the path of least resistance--a path determined by the dielectric breakdown of the air between the cloud and the earth. This path is dynamic and therefore you are just as likely to run into a forming pathway as move away from it. However the electrical resistance is decreased by proximity to the cloud (the shorter the pathway the greater the statistical probability of a strike.
Because of the dynamics of the forming path your speed is unlikely to affect the probability of a strike unless your vessel impacts upon the pathway formation because of its height or electrical conductivity.
Because of the dynamics of the forming path your speed is unlikely to affect the probability of a strike unless your vessel impacts upon the pathway formation because of its height or electrical conductivity.
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Our house got hit hard in the 90's while we were away. Lots of damage even to the Zcar in driveway 40' from the pine trees that got hit. Orlando is the lightening capitol of the west hemisphere so we heard LOTS of tales from patients when we mentioned our strike.
One patient said he was closing a chain link fence and had his hands almost together inside his body width and he got hit in parallel. His Dr said if his arms were wider apart than hi body width, he'd been in series and been toast.
Another good friend in her teens was on a phone with an elbow near an aluminum slider door. She heard thunder and said I should hang up just as she got zapped through the phone line and it arced into the door frame. She couldn't use her elbow for a week or more.
I always thought that if stuck in a storm, clip some jumper cables onto a mast or antenna and drop one end int the water for a ground. Bad idea?
One patient said he was closing a chain link fence and had his hands almost together inside his body width and he got hit in parallel. His Dr said if his arms were wider apart than hi body width, he'd been in series and been toast.
Another good friend in her teens was on a phone with an elbow near an aluminum slider door. She heard thunder and said I should hang up just as she got zapped through the phone line and it arced into the door frame. She couldn't use her elbow for a week or more.
I always thought that if stuck in a storm, clip some jumper cables onto a mast or antenna and drop one end int the water for a ground. Bad idea?
I don't think it's a bad idea but jumper cables aren't much. I'd add a few feet of chain to each cable. In my first sailboat I shackled my anchor chain to the backstay and towed it and the danforth anchor behind me. It musta worked, I never got hit. In my second sailboat all the rigging was grounded to the cast-iron keel, again I never got hit but I once got straddled by two bolts within seconds. Downright scary, especially when you're sitting soaking wet in an open cockpit!