GBurton,
Grounding effectively is certainly possible, particularly in salt water. "Ground" is simply something big that will absorb the excess charge and potential.
An interesting article that I found when researching about this:
http://www.thomson.ece.ufl.edu/lightning/IEEE.pdf
I was caught out in my first thunderstorm last weekend and have been thinking about this some as a result. I have a deck stepped mast and a full keel with internal ballast (i.e. all ballast is well encapsulated.) No compression post, either; the mast is over a bulkhead. I could run 4 gauge up the mast and then down through the deck and hull and to a copper plate, but I don't much care for that idea as it would be, in my view, inviting a strike and would require new holes in both the deck and hull, not to mention the wieght of the wire in the mast. I guess I could just bond some 4 gauge to the base of the mast instead of running it up to the top. Of course, the marginal effectiveness of the grounding plate in low conducting fresh water that I usually sail in doesn't help motivate me any.
I don't care much about electronics damage as I don't have much, certainly nothing expensive, but more concerned with hull, rigging and people damage.
I would be interested to hear any ideas to deal with this.