Lightning kills more people each year on average than hurricanes and

[NewsReader]

I'm sending this because it was a discussion on the National Catalina 30 Group http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/ams_lightning_rec.htm Lightning kills more

Link To Original Article

[l0keman]

I have a question about lightning and sailboats. This article above doesn't really say a whole lot of what I want to know. My question is basically "what happens when a small sailboat (Chrysler C-22) takes a lightning strike? Does it travel down the mast and into the pole inside the boat and down into the water? More importantly does an current jump off the pole to people in the cabin? Is there a way to keep it saif?

[XTR]

From everything I've read, getting hit by lightning is pretty much a bad thing.

Everything from fried electronics, to Holes blown in hulls, to electrified crew members.

In general you want to avoid it all costs

[l0keman]

Ya that's what I get from it. People saying their boat or another close by was struck and that their precious electronics were fried and it set them back a bit in cash. I want to know something important, like since I live in MS, and the weather changes very often and predicting it correctly is something the WX stations can't do very well, should I stay in the cabin or stay in the rain. Does it make a difference? Since it's a little 22 footer, should I drop the mast and run the engine? I have like $400 of electronics and could care less if it gets fried versus losing a single hair on a family members head. Get my drift?