Boat Water Heater Professional Gives Advice on Staying Safe in Life-Threatening Situations
Raritan Engineering Company your boat water heater specialists would like to share with you these topics we thought would be of interest to you this month regarding how to protect your boat from lightning strikes.
Your boat water heater experts know that this spring seems to have brought the most extreme weather in history. With heavy thunderstorms you will often find lightning. Lightning on the water can bring life-threatening circumstances.
Even though the odds are in your favor that your boat may never be hit by lightning, if it happens it can have devastating effects. Boat water heater installation experts say, don’t take a chance, protect yourself. If you are in a small boat and close to shore when a thunderstorm approaches, get in and off the water immediately. Better yet, don’t go out if thunderstorms are predicted.
Your marine hardware professionals know that the voltages involved in lightning are so high that even materials that would normally be considered non-conductive become conductors, including the human body.
You can find more information as well as get assistance on marine hardware and on how to protect your boat from lightning at Raritan Engineering.
Several marine water heaters for boats analysts agree that the voltages are so massive that if they start to travel through a boat’s structure – say through its mast – then meet with high resistance (for instance, the hull skin) the current discharge, in its attempt to reach ground, may simply blow a hole in the non-conductive barrier.
Boat Water Heater Expert Explains Further Lightning Protection
In theory, a lightning protection system is used to create what is know as a “Faraday’s cage,” so called after the late nineteenth-century scientist Michael Faraday. The principle of a Faraday’s cage is to provide a surrounding, well-grounded, metal structure, in which all of parts are bonded together and carry the same electrical potential.
So how does a lightning protection system work? In a boat, the “cage” is formed by bonding together, with heavy conductors, the vessel’s mast and all other major metal masses. A marine electrician must tie in the engines, stoves, air conditioning compressors, railings, arches etc. with a low resistance wire which would ultimately provide a conductive path to ground (the water) usually via the engine and propeller shaft, keel bolts, or better yet, a separate external ground plate at least 1 square foot in dimension.
Boat water heater connectors specialists know that this means that if the aluminum mast of the average sailing vessel is properly bonded to the vessel’s other major metal masses and is given a direct, low-resistance conductive path to ground, the entire boat should fall within the protected zone.
So don’t forget these helpful pointers on how to protect your boat from lightning strikes. 1) If you are in a small boat and close to shore when a thunderstorm approaches, get in and off the water immediately; 2) an even better tip, don’t go out if thunderstorms are predicted; and 3) put forth the time and effort into making your lightning proof system. It will be worth the effort.
Raritan Engineering has more information on boat water heater, marine hardware, marine water heater, and on how to keep your boat lightning proof.