Lightening Strike Photo

[reedbr]

I just noticed this on the WeatherChannel.com, picture #15 under the "Charley"  slide show.  It looks like a Hunter sailboat taking a direct lightening strike and the bolt traveling down the furler.  The image quality is low, so maybe it is an illusion.  This is the description provided:
"AP photo. Wed., Aug. 11: Lightning strikes over the Halifax Harbor Marina during a late afternoon thunderstorm in Daytona Beach, Fla. "

Take a look.  Here is a link direct to the photo that I copied to my web site:
http://users.erols.com/reedbr/temp/strike_in_daytonafl.bmp

Can anybody enlarge and enhance that for a better look?

[reedbr]

And no editing posts in this forum.  Rats.  I need to check my lightening versus lightning spelling next time.  Sorry.

[Randy Stolze]

  AWESOME !  

  It's good not to be the tallest in the marina.

  HEAR, HERE for spell check.

[wilsonlb]

I thought lightning was supposed to hit the mast and travel straight down.   It's a little hard to tell, but this looks like it hit the forestay and traveled down from there.

Though I haven't bonded my boat, it doesn't appear that "normal" bonding setups would have done much good with this strike.

[Ted Pounds]

Everything I've read about lightning indicates it behaves randomly.  Like quantum mechanics you're dealing with probabilities not absolutes.  So you gaurd against the likely scenarios (straight down the mast) first and work your way down the list as you see fit.  In the end nothing is 100% guaranteed.

[Ron Hill]

Ted is correct - the 3 million volt lightening "gorilla" will go where ever it wants to.  
I know of a C34 that was hit by a strike on the mast head which traveled down the head stay.  It then jumped to the anchor/chain into the anchor locker and finally blew out the anchor well drain port.  It was lucky that the drain is above water line because that 6" hole below the water line would have surly sunk the boat.  

[reedbr]

The photo has been enlarged and cleaned up slightly (Thanks Jeff).  I also sent a copy to Seaworthy magazine (BoatUS insurance) to see if they could track down the original.  Bob there said he would look into it.  It would be interesting so see an post-strike survey report.