Jim Nolan (now a believer in outsailing the current)
-----Original Message-----
From: Thos. Westerman <thomasw@vanion.com>
To: Bill Wallace <billw@rdmcorp.com>
Cc: wwpotter@tscnet.com <wwpotter@tscnet.com>
Date: Tuesday, August 31, 1999 12:53 PM
Subject: Lowering mast during storm/ Carbon fiber masthead charge diffusion
fingers
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> West Wight Potter Website at URL
> http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>Bill Wallace wrote:
>>You might want to re-consider lowering a mast in the event of a storm. It
>>probably increases your overall danger, since you are actually handling
the
>>mast for a time during the storm (a larger danger by itself), and you now
>>have a conductor running the length of the boat and beyond. This will
>>pickup stray electricity in the water much better than a vertical mast,
and
>>will thus be a good conductor. Also, the horizontal mast now has no
>>obvious path for the electricity to take, so it will fan out, rather than
>>trying to go out the bottom of the mast. Finally, as you found out, doing
>>anything unnecessary during a storm increases your danger of an accident.
>>Bill
>
>Thanks for the Advice Bill. I contacted Garmin about the GPS--got off
>lucky, for $89 and my cost to ship to them, they will repair the unit to
>original factory specs, even if they have to replace the whole thing (which
>includes shipping back to me too). Lucky.
>
>I sincerely doubt I could have paid for a new companion way hatch, or even
>repair work to a damaged one for $89 had the GPS not distributed the 1 inch
>contact point of the mast trailing end into a 4 inch footprint of the GPS
>bottom. That is one way to look at it. The GPS saved my Hatch.
>
>I plan to buy more galvanized chain for my anchor and will either get more
>for my side shroud lines too, or make sure to carry jumper cables for the
>same use and then leave the mast up.
>
>Also does anyone know how I could make some of those little "fingers" of
>rope like fibers for the mast head--like the ones you see on airplane wings
>for diffusing the charge--without having to buy an expensive sailboat
>lightning kit? How would I go about mounting/attaching/grounding the fiber
>bundle,etc? Nolan?
>