Lightening strike

[FirePig]

I had an "indirect" recently. Wiped out most of my electronics including my Auto-pilot. Someone suggested to buy jumper cables and drop them over the side as "arrestors". I live on a 38 foot Cat and wonder if that works. Anybody has tried?
Thomas


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[boatman61]

Many moons ago in my wooden boat days we used to shackle short lengths of anchor chain to the standing rigging and let them hang in the water..

[sartorst]

Even with elaborate lightning systems electronics become victims there purpose is to keep a human from becoming a path and being a victim! There are many discussions here about this

[Adrenaline]

Yes, I have seen that a lot of cats don't have any "lightning protection" were there is a direct path from the rigging to the water. Some mono's have a plate under their hull that connect to the mast.

I have training in real world Lightning Protection.

By connecting a cable from you're rigging to the water, it's not trying to giving lightning a pathway to bypass everything in your boat so the lightning does no damage to electronics, fire, etc. What it does, or what you're trying to do is give the mast, rigging the same electron properties as the water around you so basically lightning does not see you. That is the basic principal of lightning protection.

Important part in doing this, you should have a 2/0 or larger cable and try to keep the end in the water clean. Boat's that have a plate under the hull and paint them just killed the purpose of the plate.

But not much more can be done when the boat next to you gets hit, But you will know why your boat probably didn't take the direct hit and the guy next to you did.