responding to a storm

[frnak barbehenn]

I am a novice, and got caught in a very sudden onset but brief thunderstorm. Winds went form 8 to 30 knots in an instant. Caught on small inland lake. I'd like advice on couple of things. First, is there any protection from lightning on the boat? I have heard some say tie a wire to mast and drop end in water. Others say that's nonsense. Also, are there typically radio stations one can tune into to get sudden changes in weather for inland lakes? right now, I use iwindsurf.com for my lake, and accuweather. But of course that doesn't tell me if something headed my way right now. The marina uses flags, but that's only for the time when you launch of course. Please advise this very green novice.

 

[Ron H.]

Lightning

Here's an article from Sailnet. Dig around in their articles archive, there's several on dealing with storms, bad weather etc.http://www.sailnet.com/collections/articles/index.cfm?articleid=barron004

 

[Timm R]

Weather radio

I bought a weather radio for ten bucks or so from Radio Shack .What is really neat about this unit is that it has too modes.The first is on and the NWS is being broadcast continuously(?).The second mode is stand by where it just sits and moniters the NWS and if there is any storm coming the radio turns itself on and starts broadcasting.Most better vhf radio's have some version of this also.