Lighting / Mast wiring

[nfbr]

I'm looking at ideas to reduce (maybe only a little) risk to boat systems from a lightning strike to the mast.

One possible improvement would be to remove all / most wiring.
That way a strike has no easy path to the boat wiring.
Add in a well earthed mast and you *may* reduce damage.

Anchor Light - Solar / Automatic (how to turn off when night sailing?) Maybe not masthead, maybe hoistable?

Wind Instruments - Solar / Wireless

Radar - Remove. Use AIS

VHF / AIS Antenna - Attach to synthetic mast shroud? Wire routing may suck.

Camera - Solar / WiFi

Deck Spreader Lights - Pluggable socket inside seperate from main loom.

[Malabarista]

What is your mast made from?

[Franziska]

What are your shrouds and stays made of?

[nfbr]

Originally Posted by Malabarista

What is your mast made from?

Aluminium

[nfbr]

Originally Posted by Franziska

What are your shrouds and stays made of?

Stainless. Due for replacement. Considering synthetic.

[Michael Cobbe]

There is no way to stop a lightening strike. I've seen lightening strikes on three yachts and all their eletronics were wiped out which cost a lot of money. The oven acts acts a Faraday cage so put all of those in there when you see lightening approaching.

[vpbarkley]

I'm also thinking like the original poster. Yes this may not help but it might.

Our boat's electrics were routed by lightning and have just been replaced.

My VHF antenna is now in the stern and much lower than the mast. Yes, this does reduce range.

I'm considering mounting wireless wind instruments on the pulpit, forward on a flag pole. Yes, wind indications aloft are less affected by surface phenomena.

I'm considering wireless solar lighting on the mast top. I don't know how those lights are switched.

I realize that if lightning wants your lunch...

But, I'm not willing to roll over either.

[Stewie12]

I doubt if any of the measures you have mentioned will make any difference in the event of a strike.

[Little John]

The problem with lighting is, beside direct hit, induction. If you or one of your neighbors are hit, your wiring will be on overvoltage by induction.
The effect will be minimized, if the lines are orthogonal to each other. This is nearly impossible to arrange in reality. With overvoltage limiters in antenna- and powercables the effect can be reduced. Compare with effective lighting protection for houses for more informations.

[TedCG1]

Originally Posted by Michael Cobbe

There is no way to stop a lightening strike. I've seen lightening strikes on three yachts and all their eletronics were wiped out which cost a lot of money. The oven acts acts a Faraday cage so put all of those in there when you see lightening approaching.

Lightening, by the time it hits you, has just jumped through MILES of air. It doesn't need your puny conductors to get where it's going; it's already there. When it's getting lighteningy, unplug what you can, cage what you can, run if you can. Having, or not having, some wires or coax up the mast won't IMHO make much difference.

[smj]

We were struck by lightning, vhf antenna was fried, the vhf and stereo were fried as they shared the same antenna. All other electronics and wiring had no problem.
It wasn’t a minor strike as it put a 3/4” hole on the inside of one of our catamaran hulls and both hulls on the inside sustained damage.
So why did the other electronics and wiring suffer no damage? Lightning I think is a mystery to even the experts

[Pegu Club]

One can only hope to mitigate the effects of a strike, and none of those measures are a sure thing, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. As stated up thread, if lightning wants your lunch... it eats your lunch. If you can’t get away from it anchor kinda near a bunch of catamarans... it’s always a bit scary when those storms come.

Fair winds,

[Oceanride007]

Haven't done it myself, but as suggested in one of my threads, https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...rm-238089.html
One contributor mentioned a industrial plug that disconnects all your mast wiring, making a huge airgap. Do similar with VHF antenna. That way if leaving boat awhile or lightening about unplug all your mast wiring in easy step.

[abarrow]

I live in Puerto Vallarta and occasionally do a little electrical work for people (mostly myself). Summer is our wet season, and we get thunderstorms maybe 4 times a week. We have lots of lightning strikes.

What I've learned in 12 years of being here:
- If your mast get hit directly, call your insurance company and your surveyor. Not only will everything electrical in the boat be toast (or questionable from that day forward), you risk damage to the boat structure as well (mast, standing rigging, chain plates, etc.).
- In a marina or an anchorage where boats are relatively close together, nearby strikes are most likely going to effect your electronics. Again, stuff that continues to work afterwards needs to be looked at very closely to make sure that EVERYTHING is working. A good example is NMEA2000 busses - anything on the bus is suspect. You can have a device that seems to work perfectly when you turn it on, and then discover that the NMEA2000 connection is toast.
- On that subject, if lightning is coming, air gaps are your friend. Disconnect your NMEA2000 bus or anything else you can and move the wires apart.
- One boat I worked on was actually hit, but it was really "light". Binoculars on their expensive wind sensor and you could see the cups and fins were blown off. That was the only physical evidence of a strike (even though there was an eye witness). Everything electronic on the boat, including the inverter/charger, was replaced.
- That same boat now has a mast monkey take down the wind sensor every season, as well as disconnect everything (NMEA2000, SSB, VHF etc.). It still wouldn't survive a direct hit, but it might live through a nearby strike.
- Although there isn't much you can do about it, you really, really don't want to be the tallest guy. We had huge catamaran in the yard that was struck, had all the electronics replaced, and then struck again just a few weeks later. Lightning does strike twice. Grounded, ungrounded, puff balls, jumper cables on the shrouds... none of it makes a lot of difference.

So, putting wireless stuff on the top of the mast? If you like it and it works for you, great. I don't think it's going to do very much to protect you.

[Elie]

There is not much you can do about lightning strikes. And I shall observe that for some strange reasons some boats are more subject to strike then others. My boat is not bounded, and I was caugth in a big electric storm offshore once. It lasted for an hour. The only thing I did was to put my backup GPS into the oven believing that is would act as a Faraday cage and asked everybody to stay away from the mast and shrouds. During that storm my mast was the only thing sticking out on the sea surface. I was sure that I was in for something since I saw many bolts of light not too far around my boat. But nothing occured, and I was scotch free!. Another time in harbor a Bénéteau 28.5(a much smaller boat!) was stricken while mooring in the same harbor, while again my boat was spared. The Béneteau had a grounded mast and shrouds. Not only its lectonics and mast harware were fried, but a serie of holes all around the waterline were punched trough the faberglass, some small, a few qite large. I can't explain why, and I know that lightening is a strange and unexplained or totaly understood phenomen. Years ago, some insurers demanded total bounding of spar and rigging . Not anymore!.