Lightning and bonded through hull sinks boat in Wisconsin.

Lightning and bonded through hull sinks boat in Wisconsin.

3 messages2011-06-28 16:17 UTCthrough 2011-06-28 17:09 UTC

Lightning and bonded through hull sinks boat in Wisconsin.

Allen Edwards2011-06-28 16:17 UTC
I wrote about bonding in this article http://l-36.com/bonding2.php and anyone who still thinks bonding your through hulls is a good idea should note what happens to a boat when hit by lightning. Notice in the picture below the bonding wire and the clamp to attach it to the through hull. *Lightning strikes a boat in Wisconsin and the boat sinks in less than an hour......* On Wednesday, June 8th, 2011 as the sailboat fleets made their way in from the evening races, they were glad to beat the thunderstorm that was coming in from the west. Just at dusk eye witnesses saw a lightning bolt hit a 30 ft ketch swinging on a mooring in McKinley harbor, downtown Milwaukee. " It lit up like a Christmas tree" was how one observer described the event. Within an hour the boat was under water with just portions of the masts showing. http://www.forespar.com/boat-lightning-strike.shtml Of course, forespar has a bunch of ideas on how to prevent it, like buy their fancy plastic fiber through hulls instead but it was the bonding wire that sunk this boat. Allen [image: image.png]

Re: [Cal_Boats] Lightning and bonded through hull sinks boat in Wisconsin.

chris1232011-06-28 16:58 UTC
Interestingly enough, my 78 CAL 3-29 came stock from the factory with all thru hulls bonded and the bonding wire glassed into the hull. Not nice. Gets who took out the gutting tools...:) /ch

Re: [Cal_Boats] Lightning and bonded through hull sinks boat in Wisconsin.

Allen Edwards2011-06-28 17:09 UTC
The other side of the issue is that it is an AC safety issue. The manufacturers are going to just ground everything so they don't get sued. There is also the myth that it protects the metal when in fact it does the opposite. I try and explain it but mostly people just ignore me :-) Allen On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 9:58 AM, chris123 <ch… [at] gmail.com>wrote: > ** > > > Interestingly enough, my 78 CAL 3-29 came stock from the factory with all > thru hulls bonded and the bonding wire glassed into the hull. Not nice. Gets > who took out the gutting tools...:) > > /ch > > >