This will make you feel better about your mechanical issues.

[WDCboater]

I stumbled upon a cruiser blog by a husband and wife couple that has spent the past few years cruising the east coast and caribbean in the 72' Nordhaven. This article is about their yacht getting struck by lighting in Colonial Beach, VA (a few hours south of DC) and the mayhem it caused.

Our boats are complicated things, but imagine everything on your boat that uses any sort of electrical current suddenly stop working. (Including the engines)

Check out the article below:

http://shearmadness72.com/about/lightning-strike/

A side note, some of their other articles are very interesting, especially if you like to cruise the Bahamas and east coast.

 

[estoltz]

Wow. So many things to think about. 210 lbs worth of inverters? Holy crap. And I had to look up what a Portuguese bridge was.

 

[Molson]

They have some great videos on Youtube as well.

 

[BillK2632]

Wow - the claim was 20% the value of the boat. I'm guessing that was was north of $500k and that's assuming current value, not the cost new. The cost of a Nordhavn is fairly foreign to me - like the old saying goes "if the water is over your head does it matter how deep it is". Those are just incredible boats.

 

[gerryb]

Does Shakespeake make/sell some type of ground isolator for their antennas that routes a strike right to ground, instead of throughout the boat? Seems like this product should be standard installation on antennas.

 

[WDCboater]

Does Shakespeake make/sell some type of ground isolator for their antennas that routes a strike right to ground, instead of throughout the boat? Seems like this product should be standard installation on antennas.

I wondered something like this. They did say in the article that they put in new surge protection equipment for some key systems, but I guess nothing is full proof.

Also check out this article about changing the house batteries earlier this year!
http://shearmadness72.com/2015/04/14/2015-04-replacing-the-house-batteries/
2500lbs of batteries!

You can learn quite a bit by reading their articles and watching some of their videos. They both have USCG Master 100 Ton+ licenses

 

[Xplicitlnck]

Ok well now I don't really feel so bad about the issues in having right now. Now never seeing that type of boat I looked it up. It's a ship. Absolutly gorgeous. I do have a question tho. There is one big prop on the single engine versions but there are 2 tiny props. One on both sides. What are they for

 

[sdleo26]

Probably stern thrusters that rotate

 

[WDCboater]

Ok well now I don't really feel so bad about the issues in having right now. Now never seeing that type of boat I looked it up. It's a ship. Absolutly gorgeous. I do have a question tho. There is one big prop on the single engine versions but there are 2 tiny props. One on both sides. What are they for

Most Nordhavns are produced with a single main engine mounted on the center line. Some have the traditional twin engines. The boat these people have has dual engines, but Nordhavens makes a 76 with one engine.

The boats cruise at about 7-10knts and are designed for the long haul.

Boats with a single main engine also have what's called a wing engine. This is a smaller engine with a prop to one side of the main shaft. It's basically an emergency backup. If the main fails the wing engine can keep the boat moving.

They explain their engine choice here:
http://www.nordhavn.com/46/overview_engine.php4

You can see the prop of the wing engine in this boat listing. Look at the photos and you'll see it while the boats out of the water.
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/200...m-Beach-Gardens/FL/United-States#.VeTfP8T3arU

 

[ttmott]

In the last two years there has been two significant lightning strikes on boats here; one on a sail boat in my marina and one on a yacht in the port less than five miles away. The sail boat caught fire and was completely destroyed; the yacht experienced similar damage as in the link. In the business I’m in lightning management is of utmost importance as lives and irreplaceable hardware is at stake. What I have learned over the years is any lightning protection system needs a suitable path to ground and a capability to carry the energy to ground; otherwise, the energy will determine its own path to ground through anything that will conduct it there. Secondly, we look at what is called the “rolling sphere” in which if you put a 100 foot sphere up to, say, your boat at any point that sphere touches there should be a lightning conductor to ground. Fortunately, in a boat you have railing, rigging, mast and whatnot to be the conductors. The second major element is the conductors to the boat’s ground system and the physical boat’s grounding method. In the larger boats there is a large plate mounted on the bottom of the hull; this is the means to get electrical energy off the boat; then there are the bonding conductors from the metallic parts of the boat (railing, mast, anything metal) to that plate. These conductors are typically 10 gauge or larger, however, in a high energy shunt like a lightning strike a multitude of the conductors will be needed to carry the energy to ground.
So, what is the message? The bonding and grounding system in a boat is important and essential to the boat and safety of the passengers and must be maintained no different than any other system. Unfortunately, the bonding system is mostly inaccessible or very hard to access so at least inspect to the best extent once a year and do a more thorough inspection every 5 years. And, that plate on the bottom of the boat? Scrape and clean that thing on a regular basis.
Now, on that sail boat in our marina; as it ends up, I here, their insurance carrier is denying the claim because the boat was not properly maintained which I would say is the case in many of the boats in our marina. Regarding the story about the Nordhavn they failed to, or didn’t talk about, address the boat’s bonding and grounding system. It seems to me there quite possibly is a significant defect or deficiency in their system and no doubt at this point significant damage to it.

 

[WDCboater]

In the last two years there has been two significant lightning strikes on boats here; one on a sail boat in my marina and one on a yacht in the port less than five miles away. The sail boat caught fire and was completely destroyed; the yacht experienced similar damage as in the link. In the business I’m in lightning management is of utmost importance as lives and irreplaceable hardware is at stake. What I have learned over the years is any lightning protection system needs a suitable path to ground and a capability to carry the energy to ground; otherwise, the energy will determine its own path to ground through anything that will conduct it there. Secondly, we look at what is called the “rolling sphere” in which if you put a 100 foot sphere up to, say, your boat at any point that sphere touches there should be a lightning conductor to ground. Fortunately, in a boat you have railing, rigging, mast and whatnot to be the conductors. The second major element is the conductors to the boat’s ground system and the physical boat’s grounding method. In the larger boats there is a large plate mounted on the bottom of the hull; this is the means to get electrical energy off the boat; then there are the bonding conductors from the metallic parts of the boat (railing, mast, anything metal) to that plate. These conductors are typically 10 gauge or larger, however, in a high energy shunt like a lightning strike a multitude of the conductors will be needed to carry the energy to ground.
So, what is the message? The bonding and grounding system in a boat is important and essential to the boat and safety of the passengers and must be maintained no different than any other system. Unfortunately, the bonding system is mostly inaccessible or very hard to access so at least inspect to the best extent once a year and do a more thorough inspection every 5 years. And, that plate on the bottom of the boat? Scrape and clean that thing on a regular basis.
Now, on that sail boat in our marina; as it ends up, I here, their insurance carrier is denying the claim because the boat was not properly maintained which I would say is the case in many of the boats in our marina. Regarding the story about the Nordhavn they failed to, or didn’t talk about, address the boat’s bonding and grounding system. It seems to me there quite possibly is a significant defect or deficiency in their system and no doubt at this point significant damage to it.

This is an interesting read, but I've never heard of any non-commercial boat manufacturer putting this in their boats and Nordhavn has a reputation of being one of the best ocean crossing boats produced. Maybe they have something like this, I don't know.

But by what the experts told the owner of this boat during repairs leads me to believe there's nothing you can do to fully ground a yacht.

The thought of a lighting strike has crossed my mind before. We are fairly tall with our radar and Sat mast with lower boats around us. Thankfully a taller boat took up the slip next to us last season

I don't think any SeaRay would fare any better.

 

[ttmott]

Actually, all of our boats that stay in the water have a bonding system and grounding plate on the hull. Yes, I hear you and agree there is little one can do with a direct hit but get the energy to ground the best one can. Most damage is not from direct strikes but near misses and the energy jumping around trying to find the best path to ground; this is where a bonding system in good repair will save your bacon. We work with some of the leading experts in lightning to support studies and design and one thing they all agree on is predicting the effects of lightning is unpredictable, you need to do the best you can with what is known.

 

[Gofirstclass]

In September, 2013 (IIRC) we took a lightening hit very close to the boat https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/11904742_10206083435716861_916681749829505948_n.jpg?oh=5875759adbe3fbc362c7e462e3b2d674&oe=566E6068 that toasted my radar and GPS but that was all. I got those replaced by my insurance company and decided to upgrade to a new plotter and new radar.

I'm not sure how the lightening bolt missed us, but I'm guessing it hit either between us and the shore (we were about 50 yards offshore) or it hit one of the trees on shore. That was plenty close for me.