Lightning
 

[SIZE=8Stay the hell away from the lightning. [/SIZE]

We tried to out run a storm this weekend and 2 boats and 1 jetski from our group got nailed by a single bolt of lightning. All passengers are ok. The 2 passengers in one boat were knocked to the floor. Another boat had it's entire electical system fried. The jetski won't run anymore either. I was one of the lucky ones.

Be careful out there this season.

I had a buddy a few years ago get hit by Lightning on his Bike going down I-4 in traffic.....It hit him in his helmet and went down out his shoe to the ground......Only thing that saved his ass was his girl was on the back and she reached around and grabbed the bars aqnd pulled it over and then fell over......:eek: Couple scraps and such but they lived...I-4 ain't no place to wreck a bike.

The bike suffered severe electrical distress.......all the fuse melted together as did all the wires burned to a crisp....the gas tank was singed around the filler opening and you should see the area around his neck....he had a chain on and lets just say it blew it off him...:crazy:

Ever since then he ain't been all there if ya know what I mean...:crazy:

I was attempting to outrun a storm last year, it was really nasty, black everywhere, 35-40 knot winds and lightning everywhere. Before long, A bolt struck about 10-15 yards in front of us and created a huge cloud of steam as it boiled the water. Besides being blinded, it was the scariest thing...it got so hot for a second, we didn't know what hit us. We were lucky we didn't take a direct hit.

We promptly turned around and went back for shelter to wait it out.

we were trying to decide if we should hide under the bridge w/ the police boat and everyone else or try to beat the storm and get the boat on the trailer. it was really raining the ground was flooded, a bolt stuck about 50 feet away and needless to say the hair was standing straight up on our heads and we were smoking from the steam.

We were running a little behind them. We saw 1 bolt that seemed close and my wife commented and I told her the thunder was stil a few seconds off so it wasn't that close. Then we saw a flash and heard the boom instantly. I said that one was close! right after that the boat that had the passengers stunned passed us heading back in. We were in the miidle of it by then so there was a risk either way so we waited it out and typical of Florida weather, if you don't like it waite 5 mins and it will change. The rest of the trip was beautiful.

Just remember... you are in danger even if you only see bolts many miles away.

An average bolt is 6 miles long.


Here's everything a boater needs to know about lightning:

Lightning Safety and Boats:
http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d000001...7/d000007.html



Some other good links and weather radio frequencies:

http://www.foremostboaters.com/safety/lightning.htm
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/brochures/safeboat.htm

Be safe