Gidday,
This is about lightening in a fibreglass speedboat, and whether I did the
right thing underneath the green lipped, hail filled, mother thunderstorm:
Well yesterday I took a well earned break from my workshop and decided to
do some boat trailer maintenance which required me to leave my 1/2 cabin 18
footer at the local marina overnight. Work completed I loaded the kids, and
wifey, and we went for a quick putter before heading home. It had to be
slow actually, as the local waterways police pulled me over yesterday going
a tad too fast in a 4 knot area. I was asked to produce my boat licence
which I did and was told it was two years out of date. The silly card
displays date of expiry "unlabelled" and my DOB. I noticed this earlier and
could only think it was a perpetual licence and this was about the date of
issue. My wife pays the incoming bills so it would be easy I thought for
something to slip past. Murphys law states I was going to have a bad 24
hours ish. It turns out that the mail was not redirected when we moved
house, or at least the renewal notice slipped through after the redirection
expired. Everything seems to have expired in this story. Boat registration
sticker missing also, so "not a very impressive start to our summer boating
season". Well at least I had a roadworthy trailer which is the weak link in
my boating safety, and I had met a nice waterways policeman who let me off.
He said that if I kept under 4 knots I don't actually need a licence.
So there we were in a narrow tributary about 3/4 km wide with 300' high
bush cliffs on either side, also known for getting the largest no. of
lightening strikes in Sydney because of the high ironstone content of the
sandstone area. When the hail hit I was in the middle of this waterway so I
put the family up into the cabin. I realised I needed to NOT be the highest
point on my boat. (my kids fibreglass fishing rods had appropriately been
removed from them for the same reason). I too got as much inside the cabin
as I could making steering adjustments to the boat which was left in gear
at a slow rev by reaching out at regular intervals. The strategy was simply
to keep on the move so that I could head into wind as the direction kept on
changing in the downdraughts. It was too late to throw out an anchor as I
was worried about the lightening. I kept going around in circles with the
visibility down to only being able to see one side of the river at one time.
We got hammered! The hail was 1/2 way between golf balls and the big jack
marbles you used to play with as a kid. It looked impressive on the
surface of a relatively flat waterway, a little like seeing flack from
straifing fighters hitting the water, except everywhere at once, not just
in lines. I want to know what risk I was in, what with a fibreglass boat
and all, and whether we would have shocked if the boat had been hit. I know
fibreglass doesn't take too kindly to lightening so I figure it could at
worst, basically exploded/melted if it took a hit, but I have never heard
of that happening. In hindsight the only thing I think I could have done
better was to instruct my wife to put on her lifejacket, and done the same
myself. This would only have helped if we ended up in the water
unconscious. I think there was a greater chance of us ending up in the
water from my method of navigating in the reduced visibility by running
aground than by lightening.
So I figure we were the same potential as the water. Can anyone suggest
other or better courses of action in these boating passtimes that aviators
enjoy as their alternative recreation to flying?
Reg
Tony Renshaw
Reg
Tony Renshaw
Builder No.236
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