Lightning Master Tech Tip

LIGHTNING MASTER®

LIGHTNING PROTECTION FOR BOATS

PROVEN, PATENTED TECHNOLOGY

At any given moment, there are some 1,800 active electrical storms throughout the world generating 8 million lightning flashes per day. All it takes is one strike to your boat to ruin your whole day! For the past 200+ years, lightning protection has been the traditional lightning rod. Your mast or flying bridge is your lightning rod. Not a practical system on a boat.

In an effort for the charge to continue to ground (the water) a strike to your masthead or tower may arc from shroud chain-plates or tower frames to the water leaving burn marks down the side of your boat. Or, worse yet, if the path to ground is through your keel-stepped, ungrounded mast, lightning can burn through the bottom of your boat.

Lightning Master® Protection

First we need to understand how lightning occurs. Put very simply: As a storm cloud builds, various mechanisms create a stratified charge within the cloud, with an electrical charge at the base. As it moves through the atmosphere, it induces an opposite charge on the surface of the earth. It drags this ground charge along as it is blown by the wind.

When this ground charge reaches your boat, it is drawn up by the cloud’s charge. If, before it passes by, it manages to concentrate enough ground charge on your boat and it exceeds the dielectric strength (resistance to conducting electricity) of the intervening air, the air breaks down electrically, and ZAP! a lightning strike.

The strike itself starts as a “stepped leader” coming down from the cloud. When these “leaders” reach a few hundred feet from the ground, they draw up “streamers” that come from the ground. When a “stepped leader” meets a “streamer” the ionized channel becomes the path for the main lightning strike.

How Lightning Master® works

Considering the cause of the strike as explained above, if the formation of the “streamer” can be retarded, the likelihood of a direct strike to the boat, can be greatly reduced. The device that performs these functions is the Lightning Master® static dissipater. It employs the point discharge principal and is installed on the natural ground charge accumulation points of the boat. Your mast or flying bridge tower. This is the same technology used on broadcast towers, microwave transmitters, telecommunications towers and radar installations worldwide. The dissipater breaks down the pathway that forms “streamers” trying to meet with the “stepped leaders” thus drastically reducing your boats exposure to lightning.

Over 7000 units in use on boats worldwide. All stainless steel and weighing only 5.2oz. this 21” overall dissipater will provide peace of mind in a stormy world. For more detailed information, contact Forespar® or your local marine hardware dealer.