Thanks for the interesting story about your lightning experience. What were you holding onto or touching at the time the electrical charge went through you? And I assume that your boat wasn't grounded?
I am a proponent of NOT grounding a sailboat, because I believe in the "cone of protection" offered by the mast and stays, and I think a sailboat is less likely to have a direct hit if it is not grounded.
However, I have very little evidence to back up my belief except for reports like yours, where lightning hits very near the boat and may zap the people on the boat but not have catastrophic effects.
There is a long thread about lightning on this forum. It was started in 2002 and revived with new posts in May of 2003. Here is the link to get to it:
http://www.catsailor.com/forums/sho...=&sb=5&o=&fpart=all&vc=1So far I have not heard any reports of people being seriously injured or killed on sailboats because of lightning strikes. As in the other lightning thread on this forum, I am still interested in any personal experiences or second-hand knowledge about lightning incidents involving sailboats.
Once when we were delivering a boat down the Intracoastal, we met some people living aboard a big trimaran. They were in port for repairs because of a lightning strike. Their boat was grounded and they got hit and the lightning wiped out all of their electronics and supposedly the lightning zapped around through the boat and even went right underneath the pillow of somebody who was sleeping in his bunk but did not affect him at all. Really weird, and scary.
