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Lightning


Ray

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Plenty of info and common sense available about what to do (and not do) during a thunderstorm. But I can find no specific advice for those afloat, particularly in something like a motor cruiser on the Norfolk Broads. As our boats tend to be on tree lined rivers or open Broads there doesn't seem to be an ideal course of action

As storms are forecast does anyone have experience and or advice on the subject?

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Ooh good question!

I got caught out in a thunderstorm rowing across the middle of Oulton Broad last year and wondered what if?

With the area being so flat you can usually see the strikes coming down but whether we are more conductive than the flora and fauna around us I have no idea.

I reckon the safest place is next to something sea going, tall and covered in aerials. :default_hiding:

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As you say, there's not much specific advice available. All I have to go on is what my Dad, Uncle Albert, instructed us to do on the occasions we saw lightening storms on the Broads. I'm sure it's not a comprehensive list and although an ex-keelman and ex-RN Dad would be the first to seek out additional advice. Here's what he always told us to do anyway when he knew a lightening storm was on the way.

  • Moor up at first opportunity.
  • If moored up already and fishing...stop fishing
  • Fishing rods laid down flat on the roof.
  • Get off the decks and go inside the cabin
  • Stay away from electrical outputs
  • Don't touch the metal steering wheel
  • Sit down, shut up or go and pester your Mum and let me watch the storm in peace lad!

Dad loved watching thunder and lightening storms coming over the Broads, and I do too. I can remember two instances, one when we first moved to the Broads back in the 1970s. I can remember heading back to Brundall through the river festooned with dead fish and some really big fish at that. The last was some eight, maybe ten years ago, down the Thurne having just picked up the boat, the last boat away and trying to make a mooring before the storm caught up. Breathtaking it was, watching the lightening ground all around us.

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I love it too, only been on a boat once during lightning, sometime in the 80s. My young wife (as she still is in my eyes of course) sat inside, life jacket as tight as it would go and handbag clutched even tighter LOL

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12 hours ago, Ray said:

Plenty of info and common sense available about what to do (and not do) during a thunderstorm. But I can find no specific advice for those afloat, particularly in something like a motor cruiser on the Norfolk Broads. As our boats tend to be on tree lined rivers or open Broads there doesn't seem to be an ideal course of action

As storms are forecast does anyone have experience and or advice on the subject?

An interesting question.

The most important thing is probably not to be the highest point on the boat....and from what I've seen, for a lot of Broads boats that's just what you are when at the helm...

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I can’t say about lightning but I do know of a gentleman who was using the heads when there was a terrific thunderclap. (No jokes here please!) Apparently the noise completely  deafened him and he spent a lot of the next 6 months visiting hospitals to try and get him right again. I don’t know if he ever did fully recover. At the same time the electrics on his boat were badly damaged and they also took some time to get sorted. 

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A couple of years back we were cruising from Womack water to Loddon. We could see the very heavy clouds to the south, and by the time we got to Three Rivers Junction, we could see the lightning. We were watching it all the way down the Bure from up top in the sunshine, and as we got to the bottom of the southern loop before Marina quays, it started to rain. We rounded through Gt Yarmouth and out onto Breydon water, and the lightning was closer. We carried on up the Yare, with the lightning to the north west, but only a couple of miles away. We reached Loddon, and by then the rain had stopped, and the sun came out.   It really was a magnificent sight to watch a storm for that long. It must have lasted more than 5 hours.

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