Lightning Strike On Passage?

[billknny]

Has anyone experienced a lightning strike while offshore on passage?

Did your electronics survive? Completely? Partly? How did you navigate to you next port?

So many boats I see these days are 100% reliant on electronic instruments and charts. I know many people who have been struck while at the dock or traveling along the coast, and in pretty much every case everything that used electrons was toast.

[donradcliffe]

When the lightning starts flashing, the electronics that can go in the oven get put in the oven, including netbook, cell phones, portable GPS, and handheld VHFs. I had a near miss one time that knocked out the autopilot for two hours, but it woke up again.

[chuckr]

We got hit just as we dropped anchor in the Bahamas and took out everything. We managed to get the engine started and used an handheld gamin to get to our next anchorage and then out and across to Miami, our home port, and into the slip - all by engine using handheld


we also got a lightening strike about 50-100 yards behind the boat on passage from San Andres to Boca del Torre - it was 03-0400 or so and wind blowing hard and with thunderstorm we pulled sails and under engine - all the circuit cut off the boat rounded into the wind which was behind us - but the good thing is we turned the breakers back on and all electronics came back up - only problem was making a 180deg turn in high winds and seas to get back on track in the pitch black of night


we keep 2 computers on board that have OpenCPN on them along with our old garmin handheld

[zeehag]

we sailed thru many lightining storms in gom for nearly a year. we had no protection from attraction of lightning, and we used our tronix while sailing thru these storms.
was a tad hairy off appalachacola for a while when vhf weather voice was human not machine and we were being splained to about buoy to buoy lightning strikes and storm and that we needed to seek immediate shelter off appalach by about 70 miles...it was 0200, naturally.
we flew into appalach on min 6 fters, and lightning everywhere there for a while-- was not a planned occurrence nor will it be repeated...(glad that boat was shallow keeled..). i think the lightning bit lasted about 1-1.5 hours. by 0600 it was not quite so bad. not fun but not misery on keels.
strange how ye see only the lightning and donot hear the thunder... gom gets bludi mad at times.... wicked mad.
and i have no idea as to why we were not hit nor nearly hit.

[pete33458]

We were hit off of Diamond Shoals (Cape Hatteras) and, because of our draft and the limited controlling depths in the region, had to follow a Coast Guard vessel into Oregon Inlet. And they ran us aground! No disrespect to the CG, quite the opposite, it's just a very tricky inlet. I'm not sure how much paper charts would have helped.

An abbreviated version of our story is here

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ney-45161.html

Pete

[travellerw]

We were struck 20 min after dropping anchor in Puerto Rico. Everything plugged in or connected to a wire DIED. Anything unplugged survived. We used our surviving laptop and OpenCPN to get to Ponce.. We were also in the company of buddy boats that we could follow (we still had our handheld VHF).

I have now spoken with quite a few cruisers that have been struck (one was struck twice). Being struck while underway isn't a super common occurance. The vast majority of the cruisers I have spoke with that were struck was at anchor. In fact only one was struck while underway.

[barnakiel]

I know one of CF members boats got hit while on a passage along the coast in the Baltic. Baltic though is not offshore. It is more like sailing a big lake.

Otherwise, I know maybe a dozen boats that got hit. None of them on an offshore passage. Anchorages, marinas, boatyards.

Cheers,
b.

[wayne.b]

Originally Posted by billknny

Has anyone experienced a lightning strike while offshore on passage?

Did your electronics survive? Completely? Partly? How did you navigate to you next port?

So many boats I see these days are 100% reliant on electronic instruments and charts. I know many people who have been struck while at the dock or traveling along the coast, and in pretty much every case everything that used electrons was toast.

===

Back in the early 90s I was watch captain aboard a 50 ft aluminum racing sloop halfway to Bermuda when we got hit. All of the electronics on the boat were fried except for my recently purchased pocket GPS. That was an expensive item at the time but well worth it as things turned out. They are much cheaper nowadays to the point where every off shore boat could be carrying two or three plus a couple of USB GPS for use with laptop computers and OpenCPN. I'd recommend that all portable electronics be unplugged during a lightning storm, and keeping a few in a metal box is probably a good precaution also.

[Shrew]

I've heard that if you have a microwave, that is a better place to store electronics during a lightning storm. The have electromagnetic shielding in the case and door.

[robregje]

Originally Posted by Shrew

I've heard that if you have a microwave, that is a better place to store electronics during a lightning storm. The have electromagnetic shielding in the case and door.

Unplug it first though

[Suijin]

I’ve never been struck, and surprised at that given the number of lightning storms I’ve been in offshore. But I pile everything I can in the oven and disconnect a few other things. One thing I don’t like but also like about N2k.

In the Chesapeake, which can see thunderstorms every afternoon in summer, the fisherman’s wisdom is to move as fast as you can when lightning threatens. Can’t believe you can outrun the build up of charge potential but who knows.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by wayne.b

===

Back in the early 90s I was watch captain aboard a 50 ft aluminum racing sloop halfway to Bermuda when we got hit. All of the electronics on the boat were fried except for my recently purchased pocket GPS. That was an expensive item at the time but well worth it as things turned out. They are much cheaper nowadays to the point where every off shore boat could be carrying two or three plus a couple of USB GPS for use with laptop computers and OpenCPN. I'd recommend that all portable electronics be unplugged during a lightning storm, and keeping a few in a metal box is probably a good precaution also.

Of course these days everybody has a portable gps--otherwise know as a smartphone.

In many cases plugged in/turned on doesn't really matter. In the case of a direct hit, or even one close by, you get current fluxes of millions of amps per second that generate powerful and very rapidly changing magnetic fields that induce large voltages in every conductor around. Including the traces on every circuit board.

That the reason for putting things inside a Faraday Cage (i.e. metal box, microwave, etc.)

I think I am keeping my sextant on board... just in case...