Bristish sailors rescued from cat in Thailand after catching fire

Old Bumbulum said:
Nothing you fit can reduce the chance of a lightning strike, any precautions are merely to reduce it's effect.
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You can stay away from storm cells - which I fully accept is often a lot easier said than done, especially when in an area that can breed CuNim's very quickly indeed and when on a boat with 8 knot at flank speed on a good day...
 
Old Bumbulum said:
Nothing you fit can reduce the chance of a lightning strike, any precautions are merely to reduce it's effect.
Click to expand...

Not true.

Lightening conductors are misnamed; if they end up conducting lightening they’ve failed.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/65825/does-a-lightning-rod-prevent-lightning-strikes
Lots of other references if you look.

A good low resistance electrical path from mast to sea DOES provide some protection by dissipating the pre-strike leaders etc.
 
Without wishing to detract from the serious nature of this thread, I am charmed by its title. Were the sailors on fire or was the moggy?
 
Makes one think! Being hit by lightning is a rare but not impossible event. When a storm approaches I usually put my portable electrics in the oven and sit it out. I never really thought that the yacht might catch fire and be lost. Maybe next time I will sit with a fire extinguisher by my side.
Since my yacht was once coded, I do have one extinguisher in each cabin, two in the saloon, one in a deck locker and one in the engine room. Hopefully I might extinguish a fire before it gets out of control. Is there an RYA fire fighting course........?
Must have been pretty frightening for the charterers in an unfamiliar yacht.

TudorSailor
 
We saw a boat catch fire in Bonaire, first smoke then flames through the hatches, eventually the mast fell down and it burnt down to the waterline. The hull was later towed to a reef and sunk as a dive attraction.There was a dog on deck and it was rescued, the American couple lost all their belongings and passports so there was a whip-round to get them back up and running. We also saw a boat catch fire in Antigua Sailing Week which was an electrical fire.
 
A wet hull is nearly as good as steel for a lightning bolt, and a faraday cage impractical. Lightning conductors dissipate the electric potential which means conducting it to earth before it goes forms a bolt. Having a lightning conductor post higher than the mast not realistic.

Sticking vital electronics in oven or at least disconnecting them will help but how long do you want to be without nav and radio when you are facing a storm? Disconnecting aerial might be best but my mother was once knocked unconscious as a child by getting to my granddads old longwave aerial just as it was struck and was lucky to survive unburned, so if disconnecting do it early.
 
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