Xref: utzoo rec.boats:4205 sci.physics:13824 sci.electronics:13203 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!bacchus.pa.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!lemans.dec.com!decuac!hadron!inco!jboggs From: jboggs@inco.UUCP (John Boggs) Newsgroups: rec.boats,sci.physics,sci.electronics Subject: Re: St Elmo's Fire (was Re: Lightning) Keywords: Induction, space charge, capacitance, point action Message-ID: <8528@inco.UUCP> Date: 30 Jul 90 12:37:08 GMT References: <1990Jul18.111525.5749@ioe.lon.ac.uk> <2253@vela.acs.oakland.edu> Reply-To: jboggs@inco.UUCP (John Boggs) Followup-To: rec.boats Organization: McDonnell Douglas Electronic Systems, McLean, VA Lines: 24 In article <2253@vela.acs.oakland.edu> amaranth@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Paul Amaranth) writes: > >Not to get off the track too much, but I had a lighting strike close >(*VERY* close) to my house. I was lying in bed watching tv when the >windows went white immediately followed by the BOOOM. After peeling >myself off the ceiling (THATS the secret of anti-gravity ;-) I went A friend and I got caught out on the river in one of our recent afternoon thunderstorms. We had holed up in the cabin waiting it out as the rain and lightning and thunder came down all around us. I was sitting in the cabin leaning against an ungrounded aluminum trim strip. My friend was lean- ing against an ungrounded aluminum strip which holds the weather boards in place. A particularly close lightning strike set up some kind of charge in those ungrounded pieces of metal that was sufficient to shock both my friend and I simultaneously. Neither of us received enough of a shock to cause any damage but I can tell you we kept away from metal parts for the rest of the storm. Any explanations of how this occurred? As far as we can tell, the lightning did NOT strike any part of the boat directly. -- John Boggs McDonnell Douglas Electronic Systems Company McLean, Virginia, USA