Tillers

I am in the market for a new tiller for my Hobie 16.I am a little fussy I find the stock ones(96") a little too short.The Hotstick I find too thick for my small hands.I really like these but unfortunatly they conduct electricity (http://www.cstcomposites.com/tiller_extensions.htm)
Does anyone have a lead on some good, long(105" ) thin fiberglass tillers?

I couldn't find them listed in the store on this site, but the 100% carbon tiller extension here: http://www.sailmax.biz/store/tillers.htm is exceptionally long and weighs next to nothing.

And also conducts electricity alsmost as good as a copper wire. Not class legal for Hobie racing (read the first post).

Mike - how about cutting down a 17's stock tiller? Those things are crazy long.

Ok, this has been buggin me since July. We were on the beach at the lake watching a storm roll by on the other side, a few miles away. Lightning in the distance but not close enough to worry about. I was rigging my H16 and decided to take a break to check the brisket. Walked back to the boat, reaching for the corner casting I got a huge static shock. Now I figured that was from the lightning and such and stepped away for the boat. At the same time the guy next to me grabbed his Hull TheMightyHobie18 and got an even bigger jolt. We played around with this for about 15 minutes at which time I went and checked out the grill again. During this time, I heard a distant roll of thunder and instantly noticed the hairs on my arms were no longer standing up.

My question, is, If fiberglass does not conduct electricity, what the hell were we getting shocked by?

Thanks
Sam

There's "conductive" and then there's "conductive". Everything will conduct electricity if there's enough voltage.

Was the 18 hull damp? Salt water? Salt water is a conductor.

No, fresh water.

Well, both boats were sitting on the edge of the lake. Mine, the 16 might have even had part of a hull in the water, but the 18 was on PVC skids as I remember.

At one point, we got an arc of about 4" from the 18. We basically had all gathered around the loonytoon that was willing to actually grab the boat until the hair on his head was all but standing straight up. When he let go, it arched straight to his privates,<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> almost knocked him down.

Sam

The fiberglass will also store electricity and discharge it once grounded.

People have been struck dead by lighting on a clear, blue day, when the nearest storm was miles away.

Playing with the static electricity like that was foolish.

Like the people in Indonesia that wandered out on to the beach to see why the tide went out further than they had ever seen before.

Then the tsumami came.

You were very, very lucky.

At one point, we got an arc of about 4" from the 18. We basically had all gathered around the loonytoon that was willing to actually grab the boat until the hair on his head was all but standing straight up. When he let go, it arched straight to his privates,<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> almost knocked him down.

Sam [/quote]


"Here, hold my beer, watch this...."
famous last words.

cc

yes, it was foolish. Interesting but foolish!!!!

Would I do that again? Probably not.


More like ignorance in this case (splitting hairs)


yes, but, what were we going to do? Go back to camp 15' away?

I was not holding a beer. Rum and coke probably.

You could easily hold a kite in one hand, and still hold your drink in the other. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

I am thinking this group needs to be submitted to the Darwin Society as an honorable mention or we need to start a dumbass of the year award.