I’ve been reading a lot about lightning protection and I’ve devised a plan.
I’m assuming everyone here is pretty familiar with the topic, so rather than beat the pros and cons to death I’m working on the premise that providing a good path to ground is the goal, accomplished primarily by grounding the base of the mast to the ocean.
I sail in brackish to salty water, so this helps with the grounding effort.
My idea, which may or may not be original is thus: On my Oday 22 the mast step is supported by an in-cabin wood stanchion and is, of course, directly over the fixed lead keel. I want to drill up into the mast step and down into the lead keel fin and connect the two with a heavy gauge #4 copper wire running straight down the stanchion from mast step to keel. Alternately, I could replace the wood stanchion with a pipe, and then perform the pipe to mast/keel connection (I like this idea better for both structural and electrical conduction reasons).
The reason I think this is such cool concept is that you want to avoid bends, especially 90 degree bends, in the copper which can result in current jumps. Also I don’t want an ugly copper wire visible on the outside, in addition to corrosion concerns between the salt, copper and aluminum, being in the cabin will reduce this effect, but still warrant proper bi-metal connection.
The remaining concern is bonding all the other metal items, stays, shrouds, etc, to each other and then to ground (keel) via lighter #8 copper wire. I think an under deck solution to this is possible also, but less elegant in that twists and turns are inevitable. I think, however, if I follow the natural curve of the hull this will be minimal.
This may be the way it’s always done, but the idea hit me like a lightning bolt.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
kpg
I’m assuming everyone here is pretty familiar with the topic, so rather than beat the pros and cons to death I’m working on the premise that providing a good path to ground is the goal, accomplished primarily by grounding the base of the mast to the ocean.
I sail in brackish to salty water, so this helps with the grounding effort.
My idea, which may or may not be original is thus: On my Oday 22 the mast step is supported by an in-cabin wood stanchion and is, of course, directly over the fixed lead keel. I want to drill up into the mast step and down into the lead keel fin and connect the two with a heavy gauge #4 copper wire running straight down the stanchion from mast step to keel. Alternately, I could replace the wood stanchion with a pipe, and then perform the pipe to mast/keel connection (I like this idea better for both structural and electrical conduction reasons).
The reason I think this is such cool concept is that you want to avoid bends, especially 90 degree bends, in the copper which can result in current jumps. Also I don’t want an ugly copper wire visible on the outside, in addition to corrosion concerns between the salt, copper and aluminum, being in the cabin will reduce this effect, but still warrant proper bi-metal connection.
The remaining concern is bonding all the other metal items, stays, shrouds, etc, to each other and then to ground (keel) via lighter #8 copper wire. I think an under deck solution to this is possible also, but less elegant in that twists and turns are inevitable. I think, however, if I follow the natural curve of the hull this will be minimal.
This may be the way it’s always done, but the idea hit me like a lightning bolt.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.kpg
