Next message: Stan Gardner: "Re: lv-ab: SSB Saga continues"
>From: "James Wilson" <>
>I am an architect who regularly specifies lightening protection systems on
>buildings. I am also a sailor who was aboard a sailboat that was holed
>during a lightening strike last June while crewing for a friend aboard his
>racing sailboat on Lake Erie. Please note that this boat was, based on my
>observations and those of a surveyor, bonded in accordance with FM
>requirements for sailboats.
So why go through the effort and expense of bonding? On one hand, I can see
that bonding works because it bleeds off the rising EMF charge that occurs
just before the critical point when the lightning discharges and protects
electronics and thru-hull fittings. On the other hand, why is it that
bonding/grounding does not increase a path of ionization that normally would
not occur, thereby actually attracting a nearby lightning strike? I am not
bonded and have experienced a lightning episode where I received a jolt from
the hiking stick, saw sparks run between adjacent shrouds and blew out a
couple of interior lightbulbs, but nothing like the catastrophic damage
"Cap'n Chip" experienced. I found a Popular Science article that examined 5
theories of lightning strikes so that tells me no one really knows. First
hand info, however, rules. Chip's story was pretty amazing...SU
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