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Lightning on a Boat
I just finished sitting out in the cockpit under the tarp watching a great lightening storm blow right over top of the boat. Lots of great thunder and tons of bright flashes – such power and regal majesty yet ultimately one of the more dangerous things to those living on a sail boat. Basically, you’ve got lots of lightening flashing all over while you are sitting under a large metal pole that rises some 40 or 50 feet into the air. Does this really sound safe?
This brings me to the topic of lightening dissipaters and grounding plates.
A lightening dissipater is a brush like appendage that is attached to the top the mast. It actually looks like the metal brushes that are used on top of signs and under bridges to keep the pigeons off. The idea is that the many bristles of the brush allow the positively charged ions to dissipate into the air thus preventing the completion of a circuit between the clouds and earth. (Most lightening is the movement of energy from a negatively charged cloud to a positively charged earth. See more information at Wikipedia.)
A grounding plate is a large area of metal bonded to the bottom of the boat which is connected to a lightning rod which is at the top of the mast. The theory is that the lightning strike will move down the rod/mast to the grounding plate which will dissipate the charge into the surrounding water.
There are problems with both these systems. Basically – sometimes they don’t work. The lightning dissipaters often cannot discharge a large enough amount of energy or are not fast enough to prevent the flow of electricity. Grounding plates can only handle so much electricity. There are many stories of grounding plates that have been vaporized during a strike with the result being a hole in the boat below the waterline (or water in the basement so to speak.) So, what to do?
Well, you can do what I do – nothing.
Sit out in the cockpit, enjoy the show and hope that your neighbors mast (you know, the goldplater with the mast that’s 20 feet taller than yours) attracts all the lightning. Another bit of joy and wonder that you get to experience while living aboard a boat.
-Weather -
Down They Come
The crowds assembled, police policing, photographers poised and in a series of muted booms down they came. The metered explosions reminiscent of an orchestra with the ‘sisters’ doing their final dance – and with a graceful pirouette they are gone. Nothing but a pile of rubble and a rapidly disappearing dust cloud.
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4 Sisters Demolition
Tomorrow morning, a local sailing landmark will be destroyed. Known by sailors as the “4 sisters”, the smoke stacks of the now defunct Lakeview Generating Station will be demolished. We will have a first hand view of the destruction as our dock is the first one on the warm water outlet of Lakeview. The “sisters” have been used for navigation on the lake for many years as they were visible from many miles away. In fact, except for the CN Tower they were often the first thing you could see coming across the lake. They were visible (on clear days) from Niagara and even when they were out of site you could see the smudge of smoke they put out. They were also well lit at night which made night sailing so much easier. But, for environmental reasons – down they must come. -
Live Aboard and Sailing?
Hmmm…
Something seems to be happening here. The longer we live aboard the less sailing we seem to be doing. Others had told me that when you live aboard that your sailing habits would change but I did not believe them. And here we are – the second week of June and I have not actually sailed this boat yet this year. I have motored around a couple of times – once to bring the boat over from our winter marina and a couple of times to do pump-outs but sailing just for the pleasure of sailing we have not done.
Why?
Well, I’m not exactly sure but I think it has something to do with the boat also being our home. When you live aboard you tend to operate just like when you live in a house. Dishes from dinner get stacked in the sink for washing later. Books are left out on the settee (couch) and the kettle sits on the stove. Now, in order to go sailing all this stuff must be cleaned up and tied down or it will be everywhere. The only real solution that I can think of is to designate a specific spot for everything and when you are done using it – put it back. That way when the sailing bug hits, all you do is a quick check down below and off you go. But what fun is that? I don’t want to live in such a regimented manner. I want to go with the flow – you know – I’ll do it later. Living aboard … who would have thought it would generate such a tough dilemma?
So here we are – going with the flow, doing stuff later – but not sailing. There’s got to be a happy medium somewhere. Any suggestions?