Our week afloat - thunderbolts and lightening, very very...........

Ianqv

Ianqv

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Essex / sail out of Bradwell
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Hi All

Well, where do we start..... we were supposed to set sail for Calais last Saturday, had to turn and make a run for it back to Bradwell due to a rather impressive (and scary) thunder storm!! Then stuck in Bradwell due to wind. We finally make it to Woodbridge where I spent most of my time working on water pumps and heat exchangers. We head over to Shotley today to meet up with the Shotley cruise this weekend. In the process we run in to a thunder storm - got struck by lightening, lost electrics! visibilty went down to 40ft as it was raining so hard. Our location was the just by the shipping lane off of Langaurd, I have to confess.... it was slightly concerning!!! Made it to Shotley only to be asked by the grinning Harbour master "would we like electricity for the night"!!! Well done to my crew (and other half) Sarah for remaining calm and helping recover the situation. All safely berthed up with a couple of v stiff GnT's!!! Electrics now working ok (i hope).... Looking forward to the last few days of our "guess what happens next" holiday!! :)

Ian and Sarah
 
The bolt came down onto the water about 4ft to our stern. The noise nearly blew your ears off, honestly it shook you from within!!! We had put our mobile phone, epirb and handheld VHF in the oven (if you are lucky this can act like a Farraday cage). Glad we did as we lost everything but engine, depth and speed. We could then talk to the coast using the handheld (the Coastguard were great!! :) After a battery disconnect and reconnect in shotley everything is working (v v v lucky)!!

Yes fizzy hair!!!!!! lol
 
My sympathies, we were talking about the likelihood of this happening to a yacht whilst watching the storm today from the comfort of our conservatory. It sounds as if induced voltage spikes caused your electrics to lose the plot but recovered once restarted. Very lucky.
 
You say a lightning bolt hit the water near you.

That is facinating because I, and I imagine everyone, would have thought the lightning woukd make for the mast..
Did the water boil?
Did you see St Elmo's fire?

Whe did you get the idea of putting the GPS, EPIRB Etc in the oven to act as a Faraday cage?.... Jolly good though..
 
Likewise... I also would have thought it would have gone for the mast. As you can imagine, thank God it didn't!!
No boiling water, no St Elmo's fire!

Safely back at Bradwell now.

Re the oven...It's been an urban myth knocking about for some years now (I never thought I would have to test it out!!). It was also in yachting monthly last month I think.

Apparently microwaves do NOT work as farraday cages!!

Ian n Sarah
 
I recently completed a Diesel engine course and mentioned this but the instructor said he had never heard of such a thing ....but it 'might' work with a microwave!
 
Ianqv said:
In the process we run in to a thunder storm - got struck by lightening, lost electrics! visibilty went down to 40ft as it was raining so hard. Our location was the just by the shipping lane off of Langaurd, I have to confess.... it was slightly concerning!!!
Click to expand...

We came through that, too! Perhaps you were one of two boats some way ahead of us. We didn't get hit, though it did appear to touch down about 100 foot or so away. That was wild enough, but you had a close shave there!
 
A Faraday cage is not an Urban myth... It's well proven. Any metal box will protect the contents from high electromagnetic fields. That box may just be masquerading as a cooker.
 
Gladys said:
A Faraday cage is not an Urban myth... It's well proven. Any metal box will protect the contents from high electromagnetic fields. That box may just be masquerading as a cooker.
Click to expand...

If I remember correctly, there was a vivid demonstration of the effect on top gear a few years ago. A Hamster was placed inside a car which was then subjected to a series of extremely high voltage simulated lightening strikes. The hamster was unharmed. You may have your own views regarding whether or not the experiment was successful : )
 
Gladys said:
A Faraday cage is not an Urban myth... It's well proven. Any metal box will protect the contents from high electromagnetic fields. That box may just be masquerading as a cooker.
Click to expand...

So could I just put them in an old fashioned biscuit tin? If so that sounds like a good place to store portable electronics permanently in the boat in case of a lightening strike or near miss when you are not there.
 
Yep. I received a new Tacktick hull transmitter a few weeks ago, and had the foresight to carry a tin box with me so that when I auto-networked the new one I put the old one in the biscuit box, so there was no chance of it talking to the instruments and confusing things
 
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