I am almost ashamed to tell this story but about 2 weeks ago we were walking our H16 on cat traxs at a new sailing site/park. I had looked up more than once to make sure there were no power-lines (it’s a habit), even though I knew this site had no visible power lines, as I had check when we got there. A neighbor by the park offered to let us keep our boat in his field; I look at the field and could see no power-lines, so we walked the boat over to the field. Once in the field I felt a shock in my right arm, I looked immediately at the ground as I thought there must be some type of underground power-line, don’t ask me about the logic of this thought, but in my mind I knew there were no overhead power-lines. So, I yelled to my wife to let go of the boat and I started to look everywhere, then finally I looked up and sure enough a small power like was hitting one of my shrouds and a larger power line was hitting my comptip. The power line was conveniently hidden in a line of trees on this property. I was thankful that day for a comptip as I was sure it prevented a large amount of power from running down my mast and through my body. I was also thankful for my plastic coated shrouds. I was actually holding the bridle wire with my hand and part of my hand was on the exposed part of the wire.



So, I can deal with the comptip masts as anyone can get caught off guard. I have heard of accidents with power-lines from very intelligent sailors but now I know first hand that it can happen to me to. Also junior and youth sailors are not as experienced as most of us and seems to me a comptip is a good idea for them as well.