Have you ever had the itch to sell your 26M/X and buy a "true" sailboat?

[OverEasy]

Hi Outlander!

So sorry to hear about your loss!
That must’ve been some lightning bolt!
In serendipity at least no one was physically hurt.
The loss of things can be upsetting though for sure.

Good luck on your replacement search.
Hope you find what you are looking for.

Best Regards,
Over Easy

[Outlander]

Yes, it's a real bummer, as she was in great shape and was a lot of fun for the past five years....will sure miss the . Sure paid off having full insurance coverage! I will never underestimate the power of lightning, it is incredibly powerful.

[Russ]

Yes, it's a real bummer, as she was in great shape and was a lot of fun for the past five years....will sure miss the . Sure paid off having full insurance coverage! I will never underestimate the power of lightning, it is incredibly powerful.

Curious about your insurance claim experience. Who is your carrier and was it an easy process?

[Ixneigh]

Yowsers! I have questions.
Did you have a stainless whip antenna on the mast?
Was there any damage in the front or rear berth areas?
Was the water ballast in?
Was the ballast tank punctured?
Was the factory mast light on?

In s Florida lightning is never far away

Ix

[Outlander]

Yes, it's a real bummer, as she was in great shape and was a lot of fun for the past five years....will sure miss the . Sure paid off having full insurance coverage! I will never underestimate the power of lightning, it is incredibly powerful.

Curious about your insurance claim experience. Who is your carrier and was it an easy process?

I use Nautica (a division of Aviva). The process was quite smooth....the only struggle was trying to obtain repair quotes without having to physically take the boat in to each vendor; detailed photographs were the key. Now I'm just waiting for the "cash value" offer.

[Outlander]

Yowsers! I have questions.
Did you have a stainless whip antenna on the mast?
Was there any damage in the front or rear berth areas?
Was the water ballast in?
Was the ballast tank punctured?
Was the factory mast light on?

In s Florida lightning is never far away

Ix

Did you have a stainless whip antenna on the mast? No

Was there any damage in the front or rear berth areas? Not that I can see....but there could be

Was the water ballast in? Yes

Was the ballast tank punctured? She was out moored with the other sailboats, and the bilge was dry. There could potentially be unseen damage on the top of the tank, but wouldn't know unless heeled.

Was the factory mast light on? No, but it was disintegrated

On these boats, there really is no way of preventing a lightning strike...which is in excess of 1,000,000 volts. Unless you're going to drop the mast before every storm, or perhaps attach a booster cable to a shroud and throw the other end in the water (which MIGHT work), you are at the mercy of mother nature. The odds are incredibly slim, but as I discovered, it can happen. The crazy thing is, out of the 40 sailboats moored, mine got struck....and I wasn't even the tallest mast.

[Ixneigh]

I know the ion dissipators are said not to work, but I do see them at the tops of power poles sometimes. I keep a ss whip up there anyway.
Ix

[OverEasy]

Hi Outlander!

Yeah, a bazillion volts (give or take )is gonna go where it wants to go for whatever reason it wants to have!
Back a long time ago some pseudo East Texas “researchers” (a very loosely defined term) tried to float copper wires up with weather balloons to ‘entice’ lightning strikes (purportedly for measurement purposes…but I really think it was just to see if they could actually just witness a strike). Problem was they just spooled the wire off a spool without actually restraining the end of the wire! So in the midst of a thunderstorm they let loose the balloon and after several hundreds of feet of wire later promptly lost it all up up and away! They didn’t have any consideration of what possible potentially catastrophic consequences that might occur like airplanes getting wings sawn off or power lines crossed or shorted… (Kinda typical for that group…) Apparently a somewhat local farmer found the wire when it wrapped itself into his combine harvester and fouled it a week or so later as I recall… Fortunately (only by shear serendipity) I don’t recall anyone getting hurt (but I can bet the farmer wasn’t impressed!) … least aways that what I recall from 40+ years ago. And no… they didn’t get a lightning strike !

Very glad you are getting it all sorted out!
Hope you can maybe get a ‘new-to-you” replacement if that’s in the cards!
You’ve got the cred to own a couple of good new boat names though!
Snap-Crackle-Pop
Sparky
Kawump!
Rolling Thunder
Thunder Bolt
Bolt From The Blue
Zap!

Or for a distinct Australian theme (with true honest respect to aboriginal lore)
Babanginy (Lightning man)
Benar (Lightning or Meteor)
Waugal (the rainbow serpent creator being known as the Waugal is believed to dominate the earth and sky and produce thunder, lightning, and rain)
Malu (Lightning or Thunder)
Māngā māngā / Wutjul / Pinkan / Karntuwarti (Lightning)

With your experience you’ve earned a unique boat name!

Best Regards,
Over Easy

[Outlander]

Or for a distinct Australian theme (with true honest respect to aboriginal lore)
Babanginy (Lightning man)
Benar (Lightning or Meteor)
Waugal (the rainbow serpent creator being known as the Waugal is believed to dominate the earth and sky and produce thunder, lightning, and rain)
Malu (Lightning or Thunder)
Māngā māngā / Wutjul / Pinkan / Karntuwarti (Lightning)

Those are excellent name ideas! I especially like Malu.

For some macabre reason, I consider my self lucky. However, I hope it was just a one-off

As for a new boat, I recently bought a 2007 Hunter 25 (timing was perfect). I decided that now is the perfect time to scratch that proverbial itch and "upgrade" to a more traditional sailboat. The Hunter is located at the same marina, and I bought her from the original owner who has sailed her, right here in the same lake, since 2007. She's a beauty, and sails wonderfully. Has a shoal keel (lead) and is very manageable and stable. I'll miss many aspects of the 26M (especially the awesome cabin), but won't miss the motor maintenance, water ballast, and tenderness.

[Outlander]

I know the ion dissipators are said not to work, but I do see them at the tops of power poles sometimes. I keep a ss whip up there anyway.
Ix

I have also heard that those ion dissipators are useless, but I'm going to put one on the mast anyways!

[Russ]

I have also heard that those ion dissipators are useless, but I'm going to put one on the mast anyways!

I was also going to, until I saw the price tag.






Lightning seems to be a never-ending discussion among sailors.
https://www.practical-sailor.com/blog/l ... issipators

[Ixneigh]

i mean, one could probably make one. maybe bundle some sections of old rigging wire together and unlay them. put thd other ends into an aluminum tube, crimp it, then attach to mast

[OverEasy]

Just a thought…..

I’ve heard of folks attaching chains and wires and copper strap to the mast and dangling the other end in the water to “ground” their masts for lightning.

The mast on our Mac26X connects to the top deck pivot/support plate that then connects to the interior cabin compression post which then gets bolted through the top of swing keel trunk which is about 6 “ to the swing keel pivot support which is the only part of the boat that is metal and immersed in water in this area of the boat.

The side stays are connected to the chain plates which are bolted to the fiberglass hull well above the waterline.

The fwd stay is also bolted to the fiberglass hull well above the waterline.

So technically the mast is electrically isolated from the water by about 6 inches of air at its closest water contact point.

Now if one were considering grounding the mast to water it would appear that making a bridge strap between the compression post to the swing keel pivot bracket would be a relatively simple approach…. IF ONE WANTED TO GROUND A MAST TO WATER.

My question is why would one actually want to do that?

[NiceAft]

The discussion of lightning and our boats has been going on for decades, and no consensus has ever been achieved. Here is a post by Hamin' X from 2007.

Post by Hamin' X » Thu Aug 16, 2007 11:15 pm
We have discussed the lightening strike problem on this board in the past, with no consensus. I believe that I was the first to bring up the dissipators, because I use them at my communications sites on mountain tops. Believe me, they are effective. Their purpose is to dissipate the positive ion build-up that attracts the lightening strike from the negative layer in the bottom of the storm cloud.

They also perform a similar function to the static wicks on airframes. These are however, completely different phenomenons from the Positive ion build-p that attracts lightening. The static build-up on air frames is due to their passing through the air and building up static charges on the outside of the panels. Similarly, the fiberglass antennas often used for communications, build up static charges from wind. This is most often observed during snow storms. In the Land Mobile Radio (LMR) industry, this is know as "precipitation static". Remember rubbing a balloon in your hair? These are very high voltage, minimum current charges and can be drained off through very small conductors.

Lightening is a very high voltage, high current charge and requires massive conductors and low resistance connections. Both of which are near impossible to obtain on a fiberglass boat. And even if you were to spend the money to properly bond everything, several thousands of dollars for a Mac, These system require vigilant inspection and maintenance and a salt water environment exacerbates the problems.

Lightening strikes targets of opportunity. It looks for the object closest to the highest negative charge in the cloud. Have you ever wondered why the dead snags in the forest get struck so often? It is not because they are better conductors. The live trees are much better conductors. It is because the live trees are natural dissipators, making themselves less attractive to the lightening.

When it comes to lightening, you have three choices.

1) Chance. Are you feeling lucky today, punk? Well, Are you?

2) Bond ALL metal parts to a common ground system, with low ohmic connections. connect this ground system to a conductive shoe that is always immersed in the water. Inspect and maintain ALL connections regularly. Oh, did I mention that you fresh water sailors are out of luck with this method?

3) Use dissipators to make your boat less attractive to a lightening strike.

More later, if needed.

Rich---Hamin' X---N7ZH

Here is an interesting YouTube video on the subject that says nothing

[Ixneigh]

Ive heard of, and even had, the "grounding wire" clamped to a shroud stay and dangling in the water.
i think the idea is to encourage the strike the follow it. instead of something inside the boat, like metal parts or wiring, where it will have to penetrate the hull to reach ground. Its not a sure thing. neither is "bonding" which in the case of electricity, is the practice of connecting all metal hardwear electrically. Not sure is this is still common practice.
in the case if the ion dissipator, if the boats wet(rain) there should be enough surface moisture to carry a small amount of current to the unit on the mast. You just dont want to be the item with the largest attraction and the streamers of ions from the dissipator supposedly bleed off the charge differential.
I went though some fairly severe weather on the V22.2 including some terrifying lightning storms, without incident until I fitted her with the unstayed mast which had no whip antenna on it. After that strike, I placed a sharpened stainless rod up there and she was never hit again. On the 33Ft yawl, someone on another boat told me we'd been hit, but i didnt notice anything at the time, and found no damage or evidence of a strike. That boat also had a whip on the masthead and nothing else. she did have a "dynaplate" grounding grounding system which i kept connected to the backstay.

Ix