justsomeguy!
Super Anarchist
Of course. My solution only prevented the buildup of potential imbalance. This was happening while on the trailer.I think they can carry a lot more current then solder
Those arcs hurt a little bit!
Lightning
- Thread starter TheDragon
- Start date
Those arcs hurt a little bit!
Sailabout
Super Anarchist
I notice here in Asia some boats get regular hits and others never get hit or have damage from nearby hits.
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I think it's called "luck".
We went directly through the worst thunderstorm I have ever seen off the north end of Sumatra at night. The air was crackling, the sea surface sizzled when lightning struck it, the sound was deafening, and the lightning was literally blinding. We thought there was no way we would survive it unscathed.
But we did.
Pure luck. It was nothing I did or didn't do. We had zero control.
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kent_island_sailor
Super Anarchist
I did a total lightning refit on the same boat twice in three years
Your goal is to try and do a good enough job grounding to not have the boat sink or side-flash through the cabin. Saving all the gear is not easy.
If you are *really* worried about it, get a metal boat. Due to skin effect the lightning stays on the outside
I have hit by lightning twice while flying and both times the metal airplane took no damage, all the current went around me
Your goal is to try and do a good enough job grounding to not have the boat sink or side-flash through the cabin. Saving all the gear is not easy.
If you are *really* worried about it, get a metal boat. Due to skin effect the lightning stays on the outside
I have hit by lightning twice while flying and both times the metal airplane took no damage, all the current went around me
The latest edition of Professional Boat Builder has a good discussion on lightning protection. Not much has changed.
Our worst lightning storm was east coast of Florida. Bolts were hitting the water with 100m all around us. 2 big ship docking tugs went and held position, alongside a pier with cargo cranes to avoid being the tallest thing around.
Our worst lightning storm was east coast of Florida. Bolts were hitting the water with 100m all around us. 2 big ship docking tugs went and held position, alongside a pier with cargo cranes to avoid being the tallest thing around.
Sailabout
Super Anarchist
tallest got nothing to do with it from experience here.
There is clearly more to luck when some boats keep getting hit and others dont in same mooring area.
kent_island_sailor
Super Anarchist
You could, you can build an aluminum boat. Aircraft designers were not all that prescient anyway, aluminum airplanes were not invented to be lightning resistant AFAIK, that was a happy side effect.
Speaking of Faraday cages, that is a literal thing on IFR certified fiberglass airplanes. An unprotected fiberglass* airplane will be literally blown to bits by lightning. A copper mesh is embedded right under the skin of airplanes certified for IFR to form a cage around the plane. That is possible with a boat, but I have no idea if that would help or be much worse, depending on how that interacts with the water. Here is a plane getting tested. An unrigged boat could probably fit in there.
* fiberglass includes actual glass and polyester plus the more popular in recent years carbon-fiber and epoxy
That's the relevance. Aircraft are designed to safely handle strikes, many boat owners just think its dumb luck and do nothing.
Sailabout
Super Anarchist
Ships are farday cages, plus more inportantly they run all electronics on the bridge via isolated power supplies so the negative side of any device is not a route to the sea.You could, you can build an aluminum boat. Aircraft designers were not all that prescient anyway, aluminum airplanes were not invented to be lightning resistant AFAIK, that was a happy side effect.
Speaking of Faraday cages, that is a literal thing on IFR certified fiberglass airplanes. An unprotected fiberglass* airplane will be literally blown to bits by lightning. A copper mesh is embedded right under the skin of airplanes certified for IFR to form a cage around the plane. That is possible with a boat, but I have no idea if that would help or be much worse, depending on how that interacts with the water. Here is a plane getting tested. An unrigged boat could probably fit in there.
* fiberglass includes actual glass and polyester plus the more popular in recent years carbon-fiber and epoxy
The tin boxes the radar radios etc are in are all isolated from negative and earthed to the structure.
If the stucture touches the 24v negative you have alarms everywhere.
Sailabout
Super Anarchist
Plus the punters dont realize there are 2 types of lightning strikes
1. cloud comes over and the ground are same charge but your floating and are not- difusser on mast for this one and plenty of vids showing them working.
2. Ground and you are the same but cloud different, better hope your mast has a good path to the sea but imho the negative on the mast light or wind gear is better but isnt going to carry a strike so everything gets blown up as its all connected via the negative wiring - doh, shipping industry learnt.
1. cloud comes over and the ground are same charge but your floating and are not- difusser on mast for this one and plenty of vids showing them working.
2. Ground and you are the same but cloud different, better hope your mast has a good path to the sea but imho the negative on the mast light or wind gear is better but isnt going to carry a strike so everything gets blown up as its all connected via the negative wiring - doh, shipping industry learnt.
Also that aircraft in flight don't provide a path to ground...
I am in the process of building a lightning conductor /dissipator based on Tesla's 1918 patent, it's a bit like the devices in the Winns video just a lot cheaper and lighter. The big joke really is I will only know if it works or not if I get struck. I just decided to give it a go it was probably worth a punt having seen what a pain a strike can be. According to Tesla my current rod is probably more lightly to attract a strike than having nothing at all, the trouble is it's a lot less windage than his device which is large in comparison. Just as a by and not very scientific a common feature in the strikes I have seen have been those thin whippy vhf antenna if I were mounting a masthead antenna I would not use one but go for those short stubby antenna like on a hand held vhf as the sharp point does seem to work exactly like Tesla predicted and attract a strike.
TheDragon
Super Anarchist
- Thread starter
- #37
You will never know if it works or not. Even the guy in that video promoting them admits he has been hit since installing it, just claims his lightning strikes are now less frequent than every couple of months, a claim that was ludicrous in the first place. How many lightning strikes have you suffered in how many years in which locations? How much of a reduction in lightning strikes over the same number of years in the same location would you consider proves that it works?
Kirchhoff's current law still applies at altitude.
If I get struck it will not have worked. If I never get struck I will never know if it works or not hopefully that is the outcome. Tesla's idea was to reduce the chance of being struck in the first place but if you are it works like a conventional conducter with a direct path to earth. It's pretty complicated and loads of variables such as surface area etc so it's really a bit of fun and a educated guess in the end. The reason no device is garanteed to work is because of the massive variables involved but that's no reason not to have a punt and try one especially as I am not having to fork out a load of cash to build one in the first place.
True, but assuming that "current in" ultimately leads to a charge-bearing cloud or air mass, and "current out" ultimately leads to ground (or vice versa), an airplane sitting in the middle of the air is in a very different condition from an object connected in some way to ground.
