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Boy killed by lightning in our anchorage, what would you do?

9K views 32 replies 25 participants last post by  sloop.odyssey 
#1 ·
We are catching up on the news and learned a boy was killed by lightning last week in the same anchorage we were in on Saturday night (Superior, WI). It appears the captain had beached the (swing keel) boat during a storm and was leading his family ashore. Six others, including the Captain, were seriously injured. An absolute awful tragedy.

The local authorities are saying the family was doing the right thing by getting ashore during the lightning storm. However the family was struck while wading through knee deep water to get ashore.

We (family of five) ride out these lightning intensive thunder storms on our boat rather than making our way ashore. Are we doing the wrong thing? What do you think?

These storms are very common on Lake Superior so I am interested in your opinions.
 
#2 ·
That is an awful tragedy.

We don't sail when pop-up thunderstorms are predicted usually, but last Friday evening was an exception. We took two other couples out for a Friday night sail and an hour into the sail we saw a dark cloud building to the south. The winds were fantastic with 12-17 kt out of the west when they shifted to the south suddenly. The crew saw me looking nervously at the sky and one of them checked the radar on their iPhone. It was a small cell and we did not see any lightening so we opened a beer and kept going.

The sail was fantastic from start to finish, but I had to hide thoughts just as you present. Is it better to go ashore or ride it out and let the grounding system do its thing?
 
#3 ·
My opinion: ride it out on the boat, preferably inside the cabin, and stay away from the mast and anything electrically connected to it, the stays, lifelines, pulpits, etc. According to some lightning experts, the mast provides a "cone of protection" of at least 90 degrees, such that lighting that would otherwise strike in the "protected" area will attach to the mast and be preferentially conducted along the mast and any metallic conductors between the sky and ground (i.e., the water).

If your boat doesn't have a serious grounding system, you may regret it if you get struck and suffer structural damage like holes in the hull. Even if you have a good grounding system, you are likely to lose all of your electronics that are exposed to high voltages and high fields. Better to disconnect and wrap any portable/removable electronics (VHF, GPS, cell phone, etc.) in aluminum foil or otherwise place them in a metal box (if you have one, a boat's oven would do) to act as a faraday cage.

If you have insurance, read the fine print about replacing damaged electronics. My boat has had 2 lightning strikes over a 10 year period and I was glad my policy covered equipment replacement without depreciation. Not all policies--including BoatUS, last time I checked--would pay for full replacement.
 
#11 ·
My boat has had 2 lightning strikes over a 10 year period and I was glad my policy covered equipment replacement without depreciation. Not all policies--including BoatUS, last time I checked--would pay for full replacement.
Two lightning strikes in the past 10 years? Am very curious as to what lightning protection/grounding systems you employ, if any.
 
#4 ·
If you are walking along a beach in the water you'd become a conductor to ground. This is not acceptable. Most sailboats have a ground plate is attached to the mast and bonded through out all the hull fittings including the shaft, if it is a inboard. You are much safer aboard the vessel as the mast becomes the conductor and discharges the lightning through the ground plate. captg
 
#5 ·
You are safer warm and dry in a cabin, than having any part of your body touching water.

Even if the lightening strikes the boat, risk of a flashover going through the dry cabin air through your body then back through the hull is (smaller) than induced currents conducting through water, and your wet body.

Resistance of dry skin several Kilo-Ohms, resistance of wet skin a few ohms. Bottom line if lithening strikes within a few hundred yards of the body of water, (lake, etc...), that you are in contact with it will kill you.

If they had gotten into a lightening rod protected building before the strike they would have been safer, but obviously they were too late.

If I had to choose between laying flat on a beach, or a field, or a parking lot, or staying aboard, ... I would throw a heavy guage wire attached to a metal plate and the mast overboard, and go to the V-berth and take a nap.
 
#6 ·
From Boat US

First, don’t panic; though many boats are struck, the BoatU.S. claim files have few injury claims and only two fatalities over the years (one man was killed as he stepped onto the dock while holding onto a shroud and another had been swimming out to his anchored boat).

This supports you are safer on the boat, especially if you have good grounding system. Just don't try swimming, or holding a shroud and stepping onto a dock.
 
#7 ·
I've followed this story closely, as like the OP, my boat is at Barker's Island Marina, just a mile or two from where this tragedy occurred. Eight people (6 family members and 2 family friends) were caught out on the lake in a 26 foot sailboat when the thunderstorm approached. As I understand it they made for the nearest shore and got off the boat as the storm hit, then had second thoughts about being on the beach in those conditions and were in the process of getting back on the boat when the lightning strike occurred. The boy died and 5 other members of the party ended up at the hospital.

Tragic, heartbreaking for the family, and way too close to home for the boating community in the Duluth-Superior harbor basin.

Mobnets
1973 Paceship Chance 32/28 "Westwind"
 
#9 ·
Curiously, it is my understanding that freshwater is often more dangerous with regard to electricity, because of its low conductivity; in saltwater the current has a free path, while in freshwater the person is the short-cut. In other cases, saltwater can be worse (takes less on your feet to put you in the circuit).

No easy answers.
 
#10 ·
So far no-one has mentioned how dangerous the wheel and tiller are in a lightning storm. They both provide an excellent path to ground. Worst case would be one hand holding some rigging, the other the wheel. Best plan is to stay out of the cockpit entirely, and go below.
 
#21 ·
I learned this lession the hard way. As I said in a different post I was just sitting in the cockpit between the wheel and back rail watch a storm pass off in the distance when I felt the charge and watch the steering weel lite up then move thru me to the back rail. It felt like being zapped by the coil for an old car (15k volts) or 240 volt house current,I've been zapped by both.

I think sitting inside the cabin waiting out the storm is the only safe answer. Unlike Chef nothing other then me got crispped that night.
 
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#12 · (Edited)
I personally don't stand in water or hold golf clubs in the air during electrical storms.
I don't pee on cow fences or jam knives in electrical outlets either.
This is just common sense and that boy might still be alive if he was not in the water.
That being said that family was struck point blank and lightning is unpredictable.
There was no negligence on their part as they bet they could get to shore and under cover before lightning hit. They bet wrong is all.


For lightning protection I use a tin foil hat and a magic fuzzy ball at the masthead.
 
#13 · (Edited)
I got a follow-up question to all you folks in the know... I have a deck stepped mast, on a trailerable boat. I am not an electrical newb, having an EE background, but mathmatically speaking "cone" notwithstanding, I don't think it'd be pleasant to be on a boat struck by lightning grounded, but ungrounded as is the case on my boat, particularly unpleasant (thinking holing the boat to get to the keel for grounding).

I know of no grounding between my chainplates, and my keel, therefore in freshwater as I am and mine being the tallest mast in our club (or one of them), I figure my boat is MOST likely to get struck. I've considered running a heavy gauge wire from my chainplates to my keelbolts. Anyone ever considered this "special case?" Is the freshwater neutral enough that lightning will avoid masts on freshwater, and prefer a tree?

PS: I've always been told that a keel stepped masted sailboat was safer than being on shore/beach/near trees in a storm. These pop-up t-storms can come up quick and wondered if there was a "procedure" or preventative that can help prevent a tragedy.
 
#15 ·
I got a follow-up question to all you folks in the know... I have a deck stepped mast, on a trailerable boat. I am not an electrical newb, having an EE background, but mathmatically speaking "cone" notwithstanding, I don't think it'd be pleasant to be on a boat struck by lightning grounded, but ungrounded as is the case on my boat, particularly unpleasant (thinking holing the boat to get to the keel for grounding).
.
Ungrounded or not There is no real proof either way as to safety.

A lighting bolt with several million volts does not act the same as 12 dc.

What there is proof of is the Faraday Cage Principle.

You are unlikely to get physical hurt sitting down inside a FG boat especially with an alum mast. But Lightening strikes are each unique and unpredictable.
 
#14 ·
Even though it was "fresh" water, it still conducts. And when lightning is about one of the rules is STAY OUT OF WATER because any strike in your area, will spread through the water and that's going to hurt or kill anyone in it.

Opinions about lightning safety vary, but storms rarely just happen.

The most productive thing might be to wait a while, and then hold some lightning safety classes. Including the most basic one: If the sky is gray and the forecast, which you DID listen to, call for storms? GTF off the water. Now, not later.

Some docks also keep a weather radio going all day, at the dockhouse, for the benefit of folks who have showed up without checking the weather. That's not expensive either.
 
#16 ·
What about steel sailboat?? if your inside would they act as a giant faraday cage? and if your on the outside of the boat? would the electricity run through the hole boat or hit the mast, shroud and stays and then use the shortest path to water??

Pierre
 
#24 · (Edited)
A full metal hull should do that. But don't forget about the mast top VHF antenna and the other wires going up there. There needs to be lightning arrestors on the antenna feed line and also on the power wires going to the lights. Else the surge will just come in through there and spread in to the whole electrical system.

As for the wheel and tiller, they should be electrically connected to the ground that the mast uses. This ensures that everything is at the same potential and there isn't a different voltage at your mast, rigging and lifelines than there is on your wheel or tiller.
 
#17 ·
Here is a quote that I find quite interesting and pretty much sums my analysis of the question at hand.
have a friend who survey's boats for a living and was previously in the boat repair business. His exact comment to me was I would never tell a client to ground his boat. So I asked him - "so you advise against it" and he replied " I would never tell a client not to ground a boat." He said he defers the question becuase its too much of a liability.
Same would go for the Stay in the Boat or get to shore.
Myself I stay in the grounded boat in spite of and because of the grounded boat having the same potential as the water.:confused:
 
#20 ·
Ok..we were side sturck by lightning this summer on a mooring in Back Creek Annapolis surrounded by 900 other sailboats. Our boat is grounded to a plate on the hull. The lightening hit a water tower next to us...came through the water up the shaft, melted the Yanmar engine panel, traveled through the engine ground back into the panel, Indescriminately fried instruments ( chartplotter, depthfinder, red LED in two way ficxtures shore charger, VHF ram mike, went up the mast, blew off the windex and wind instrument and hopped to the mast of the sailboat moored next to us. When the charged hit the panel in the cabin there was a blinding ball flash, our hair stood up, oozone smell. I pad, Mobile VHF, TV anannne and radar, white LED in two way fixtures were not affected. All in a milli second. We are bonded and have one of those burr things on the mast top.

1 million volts will go where it wants...give it a path out so it doesnt blow a hole through something looking for it. Can you prevent from being hit. Yes...dont own a sailboat. You can maybe incvrease your odds, but there are no sure remedies or cloaking devices here.

Dave
 
#22 ·
The strategy of using the stove as a Faraday cage makes a lots of sense, in theory, and I do put the handheld in the oven when there's risk of lightning. But I'm also very curious whether anyone on the net has first-hand experience of equipment in the stove (or any other Faraday device) surviving a strike that disabled equipment elsewhere on the boat?
 
#23 ·
we sailed thru a lot of that stuff--never but never swim or be in water of any sort in lightning storm. not fresh nor sea water.

we had zero lightning protection, zero hits, and i was nervous of the ss wheel --so i wore rubber everything outerwear....my boat has a wood wheel, no metal plates on mast---no anti lightning attraction devices--is virgin, and we pray a lot. and we have a cat on board....

i ssad about the kid being hit---too many folks think is better on land. actually, it isnt.
 
#25 ·
Not being deliberatively argumentative, but steel's point about a steel hull providing a faraday cage would be true if there weren't any holes in the steel larger than the openings in the mesh on your microwave window. Lightning is a very short-duration electrical event with correspondingly high frequency (e.g., radio frequency) components that will pass through your hatches, companionway, etc.

Also, surge protectors can't hurt, but are not likely to make much of a difference in a direct strike, which will not only electrify your wiring with a conducted, transient high voltage, but will also generate a radiated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can impress a high voltage across a circuit board--well above the breakdown voltage of any semiconductor.

How do I know that? I lost a wheel pilot control unit in an indirect strike. It was sitting on a shelf, not connected to anything. I lost all of my other electronics, too, including a VHF that had in-line littlefuses that looked like popped flash bulbs. That radio circuit was electrified, even though its circuit breaker and the master breaker were in the "off" position.

I also wouldn't ground your tiller/wheel, unless you don't want your mast to act as your primary lightning rod to keep the main discharge away from the cockpit. There's a reason that injuries from lightning strikes are less severe or less numerous statistically on sailboats compared to power boats. It's all about the height of the mast and the larger cone of protection on a sailboat!

I've already indicated in previous post that I have had 2 lightning events with my current sailboat. Your best defense is an insurance policy that does not depreciate your electronics (as does BoatUS, last time I checked).
 
#26 ·
sallard, overall I agree with you but note that you don't need a theoretically perfect faraday cage in order to have an effective one. Aircraft windows are about the same size as boat hatches, yet avionics pros will tell you that the aircraft basically IS a very effective faraday cage and they rarely take damage even when struck by lightning. The skin still conducts most of the charge on the OUTSIDE of the aircraft, the same way that AC power is largely conducted on the outside skin of a wire. I don't know the physics, I just have the Cliff notes.
Similarly, if your electronics were "protected" only by having the brealers thrown, that's no protection. The air gap in a breaker flashes over and fails at around 3000 amps discharge. The lighning is pushing way more current and voltage than a breaker is designed to protect against, you might as well say that a spark plug's air gap can "protect" against an ignition system's coil power. Of course, it doesn't.
While professional broadcasters DO use more effective lightning protecction devices (like PolyPhaser) and those devices work very effectively to protect towers and transmitters that never are unplugged, those folks also do go off the air due to lightning damage at times. Despite the best of protection and expert installation.
Bottom line, to protect electronics you do what radio operators have done for a very long time: You ground the antenna cable, outside of the radio room (i.e. above deck or at the mast) and the antenna and cable iteself are sacrificial items. Once the electronics are really isolated, they are safer. But that means unplugging everything every time you step off the boat, and then the connectors fail, or the job becomes a nuisance that just won't get done.
Lightning: God's way of playing golf. Always hitting par, often scoring hole in one.
 
#27 ·
hellosailor has a point about not needing a perfect faraday cage to get some protection, with a car providing another example. That said, the whole boat as an approximation to a faraday cage only applies if the boat is all metal. The overwhelming majority of recreational sailboats are plastic.

It is more likely that the typical sailor can only get the benefit of a faraday cage that is much smaller, like an oven or an aluminum foil wrap. It can be inconvenient to disconnect and remove your electronics to an oven, so the aluminum foil trick may be more practical, as long as the wiring is disconnected. I agree that just switching off a breaker does not guarantee protection, as I noted in my previous post. But I also noted my personal experience that completely disconnecting your electronics does not provide protection against the electromagnetic pulse from a lightning strike.
 
#28 ·
Normal fuses provide no effective lightning protection. The little wire in the fuse vaporizes instantly and coats the inside of the glass with a thin layer of conductive metal.

Now if the potential from the strike is high enough, the now metal metal film resistor which used to be a fuse will explode from the pressure inside and when you open your little plastic fuse holder, you will find what looks like grey sand in there between the two little cups that were the ends of the fuse. Needless to say, what ever that fuse was supposed to protect is probably smoked too.
 
#29 ·
Since I have some experience here I'll throw my two cents in. I was on a boat struck by lightning. Cruiser, connected to shore power, well grounded boat. Standing in companionway watching storm. There hadn't been lightning. Next thing I knew I was laying on the cabin sole. Not sure if I jumped or fell. Someone across the ICW in a house thought I was dead because I just stayed down below, they sent the Marina person down, thinking they were gonna find a body. It vaporized the VHF antenna on the mast, the SSB and VHF died, the little lightning thing on the mast was gone. Everything else was fine. Witnesses say it was a direct strike on the mast. All I know is it was the loudest thing I've ever heard. I'll take a well grounded boat any day over being anywhere else. Even though it's the tallest thing around and presents a good path to ground, it's a great place to be.

I'm an EE and I'll tell you we still know very little about lightning. We still can't even figure out which direction it goes or what really causes it, much less how to prevent it.

Shame about the death. I'd recommend staying in the boat and on the water.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 
#30 ·
Has anyone had the VHF antenna hit while having a properly installed lightning arrestor on the VHF antenna feed line? The ground of the lightning arrestor has to be connected to the mast ground with its own wire.

Of course if the EM field created is so strong that it destroys electronics which aren't plugged in then there isn't much you can do except get military grade hardened electronics.

And why not ground the rudder? You want to have 20,000v between your wheel and the throttle control which is hooked to the engine which could be hooked to the different mast ground?
 
#31 ·
If you've ever read the publicly available papers on what "military grade hardened" electronics and systems are, you would understand why no one can afford to put them on a boat. Check out what is needed to "EM harden" a building, you'd have to build a submarine to do it to your boat.

Similarly, why not ground the rudder? Uh, because it is already "grounded" by being fully submerged in the water. Unless you want to run a cable down to an earth anchor grounding rod, that job is already done.

Lightning protection works frequently but never completely. Check out PolyPhaser and install one in your antenna line to protect your VHF. But it won't protect your antenna, antennas are sacrificial parts. If you want to protect the antenna, you submerge the boat before the storm. Honest, that's how it is done.
 
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