Lightning Strike Prevention

[Coheeba]

I was on another thread and someone was discussing lightning. I live, boat in the Gulf of Mexico in Florida and we have thunderstorms pop up regularly while boating. I searched for the best thing to do during a lightning storm and came up with "get inside a building". So i searched for a lightning app and came up with this one.
My Lightning Tracker Pro.
Does anyone use an app or just don't care or haven't thought about it?

 

[Betik]

I think in this size boat you ( we) are toast

 

[2kwik4u]

If we have time to run we will. If it comes up too fast, or will pass by the time we could get the boat on the trailer, we find the tightest smallest cove we can and take shelter there. The premise being we don't want to be the tallest thing around, so we make sure we're hidden as well as we can among much taller things.

 

[Papa]

I use the weather channel app on my phone. It has lighting tracker. Check to see which way the storm is headed and go the opposite way to the nearest shore line or dock. At any rate, get to something taller than your boat.
Papa

 

[haknslash]

It's all my fault from my pic and vid

I am guilty of having to get in the water with lightning all around. Had to drain the lizard like 3 or 4 times in the span of 30 minutes . Normally I avoid storms and lightning at all costs but sometimes they get ya especially in the humid south during this time of year. I was on a long lake and a big storm was brewing between us and where we needed to go and was headed our direction. We got caught Saturday and decided to position ourselves just outside the storm based off using the "My Radar" app and hoped it would not hit us directly. We could have tried to dock at the marina but I figured I would be more prone to get struck trying to tie up than if by myself not by a bunch of boats and metal. Just had to wait it out and watch the light show. Didn't help I had to pee like 4 times during this 30 minute light show. I think I read in a link from the other thread that most of the boating and lighting related deaths came from from when people where around structures in their boat or touching metal like loading into your trailer.

At least we had live music playing at a nearby marina while we waited it out

 

[Gym]

I set my wife on the beach under the beach umbrella with a full bottle of wine while I hide in the boat's floor locker till the lightning passes.

 

[Mainah]

If in a towered boat put on rubber sole sandals and stand on the carpet or seadek without touching anything metal. That tower will attract the charge. If it is a towerless boat lay down and hope for the best. Absolutely do not get in the water even to piss.

The key is to have an insulator between your points of contact and not be touching any conductors. To give an example if you touch a live bus bar on a house electrical panel wearing running shoes you will get quite the jolt. If you do this barefoot standing on concrete you better hope there is someone nearby to tackle you because you won’t be able to let go as you get fried. The only difference is the shoes as insulators. Electricity will take the path of least resistance .... don’t be the path of least resistance.

 

[Mainah]

If in a towered boat put on rubber sole sandals and stand on the carpet or seadek without touching anything metal. That tower will attract the charge. If it is a towerless boat lay down and hope for the best. Absolutely do not get in the water even to piss.

The key is to have an insulator between your points of contact and not be touching any conductors. To give an example if you touch a live bus bar on a house electrical panel wearing running shoes you will get quite the jolt. If you do this barefoot standing on concrete you better hope there is someone nearby to tackle you because you won’t be able to let go as you get fried. The only difference is the shoes as insulators. Electricity will take the path of least resistance .... don’t be the path of least resistance.

Almost forgot @haknslash or anyone else do not try the busbar thing at home with or without shoes.

 

[Coheeba]

If in a towered boat put on rubber sole sandals and stand on the carpet or seadek without touching anything metal. That tower will attract the charge. If it is a towerless boat lay down and hope for the best. Absolutely do not get in the water even to piss.

The key is to have an insulator between your points of contact and not be touching any conductors. To give an example if you touch a live bus bar on a house electrical panel wearing running shoes you will get quite the jolt. If you do this barefoot standing on concrete you better hope there is someone nearby to tackle you because you won’t be able to let go as you get fried. The only difference is the shoes as insulators. Electricity will take the path of least resistance .... don’t be the path of least resistance.

That may work with household voltages and currents but lightning is 10s of thousands of volts and amps.

 

[Julian]

I just posted the following in the Bimini thread:

Ok...so you want to make this trip even scarier....keep reading....

We drove through a storm last year....I wish I'd read these articles and thought about the risks:

https://www.boatingmag.com/surviving-lightning-strikes-while-boating-0

https://www.boatingmag.com/gear/how-to-prepare-lightning-strikes

If we end up in a storm this year, I will:

1. First do anything I can to avoid a storm (make a big detour around it!) See if we have cell coverage to look up radar. 1 in 1000 is good odds!
2. Lower the antenna
3. Disconnect the antenna from the radio
4. Stick my metal boat hook in a tower rod holder
5. Drive with one hand (wooden spoon?) and one hand in my pocket
6. Make sure hand held radio is in ditch bag inside the storage room (tower comes down towards the stern).
7. Tell my brother that I hear fish really like to bite in the rain....and doesn't he want to sit on the back with his HUGE PENN Rods and reels? LOL

 

[Mainah]

Great links @Julian. Got me thinking that running a 4awg wire from the tower to the ride plates might be an easy way to get most of the benfit of a grouding plate. To add to my previous post... all assuming the deck is dry but of course it won’t be in the situation being proposed.

 

[swatski]

First do anything I can to avoid a storm (make a big detour around it!)

We tried that last year on the way to Bimini. Didn't work that well. Realistically, unless you have a radar on board you are running blind as far as those small storm cells, which can be 1-2miles in diameter and barely popup on weather maps.

Then, of course, we tried lowering the tower. Well, let me tell you, that did not work very good, at all.
(maybe I was just doing it all wrong, lol)


EDIT: Man, thanks for posting, gave me whiplash!
good reads but there is really not much one can do - when already caught up in it. Looking at the stats, I think personally we were very lucky, we had had at least two strikes WELL WITHIN a mile from us, maybe a quarter mile, with lightning and sound of it within a second. It was not a good feeling.
I did have my VHF radio going, not transmitting though. Should have been off.

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