Lightning protection

[Sunset]

I think I want to build in lightning protection in my boat. Most research I have done is the only sure thing about predicting what a lightning strike will do to you and your boat is that you cant predict what will happen. Some say when you have protection you actually increase your chances of a strike.

A lot of surveyors say boats that have taken a strike that had no adequate protection, the lightning found its own way out. Sometimes by blowing a hole through the bottom. With protection maybe some electronics damage but that's usually all. So whats a fellow to do, no protection and lessen the chance, or protection and increase the chances but a more controlled less severe damage?????

When I turn my hull this will be on my mind before I get to far along on the interior.
I will be talking to the designer about how to do it when the time comes if I decide to add protection.
I have heard somewhere that designers don't like to put lightning protection in their prints, or design lightning protection because lightning is so unpredictable that it could leave them liable for the design.
Understandable considering even NASA doesn't totally understand lightning.

I think I would be more comfortable with protection and trying to control this crazy thing, than to have a hit and have it bouncing all over the boat looking for the best way out.  Its the part about increasing the risk that really puts a bug in my rum. :)

[Sunset]

Sorry I should have done a search first ???

[Captain Smollett]

There's a ton of "conventional wisdom" in print around on the 'Net and no one knows for sure.

One of the more "controversial" sides in the debate may not apply to you, but I think it's interesting.  The idea is that with a fiber glass boat, there's no path to ground since the boat is essentially an 'insulator,' much like why cars get struck so rarely.  In this school of thought, "no protection" is considered the best protection.

I think this is the origin of the "increasing risk" that you've heard/read.  If you add a path to ground, you "are" increasing the chance of a strike, but hopefully lessening the damage.

I don't think I'd apply that to a wood boat, though.  Lot's of wooden boats (and wooden spars), and trees for that matter, have gotten struck. 

In the "have to have protection" camp, there are again different schools of thought.  First is "Faraday Cage," which has a ion dissipation device at the top of the mast and the second is a BIG HUGE path to ground, either outboard or through the keel or some such.

I know one world cruiser who has a huge honking cable bulldogged to the shrouds and hangs in the water.

The problem with any method is that you cannot prove a negative..cannot show causality for NOT getting struck.  No one can say, "I have not gotten struck because I have x."  There are boats both with and without devices that get struck, and ones with and without devices that don't.

So who really knows?  One of those things you roll your dice and take your chances.

For my own observation, though, it's amazing to me given the "fear" that is generated around the possibility of lightning striking a boat with a bit metal stick in the air is how rarely they are struck.  We've sat in the marina and watched lightning strike all around us, on the bridge and on shore, and never strike a single boat in either of two crowded marinas in sight.

Maybe the odds are higher if you are the ONLY boat with a big stick around, like on open water?  Again, who knows?

Strikes to boats certainly happen, but they seem relatively rare to me.  Trees seem MUCH more vulnerable than boats, even boats with masts.

(Sorry, that did not help answer your specific questions....)