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#91

TSBB General Talk / Re: 2 videos on Low wattage ai...

Last post by Charles Brennan - Aug 04, 2026, 10:42 AM

Doug,

If stainless would the corrosion act as insulation?

In a word: Yes.
There are things that can mitigate that such as Noalox, that in addition to being cheaper than Tef-Gel, works good for preventing the corrosion in the first place.
https://www.amazon.com/Ideal-Industries-30-024-Noalox-Ounce/dp/B002KKW01K/

If a guy was Slick,  he might even use a S-S bolt through the aluminum mast, which would be the same fastener for attaching the aluminum to the wooden lower part. Push the bolt through and hold it in place with a wing nut.

I thought that 2 hose clamps could increase the amount of contact area of copper to mast if spaced about a foot apart. Would that be of benefit?

That's a Tough One.
You guys keep trying to drag me back into the Nerd Weeds! 
So just remember: YOU asked for it!! 
Analogy:
Consider a 12 Volt DC system for say, a trolling motor.
Your trolling motor needs say, 40 Amps to run. Let's also assume you used some wire you happened to have laying around the house.  After getting it all wired up, you discover the resistance from the battery out to the motor and back, is 2 Ohms. Ohm's Law (which is: E=I X R) tells us that 12 volts divided by 2 ohms, gives us a maximum of  6 Amps of current that can flow through that wiring.
Your motor needs 40 Amps.
While you might be surprised that the motor barely runs, any Technician would not.
So you beef up the wire (A LOT!) so that now, your resistance is ¼ of an Ohm.
How much current flow, now? 48 Amps.   MUCH Better! 

OK, now let's multiply that by a coupla hundred MILLION times.
As in, the 300 million volts of your average lightning strike.
Let's play with the same two numbers.
300 Million volts at 2 Ohms, gives us 150 million Amps of current flow capacity.
300 Million volts at ¼ Ohm, gives us 1.2 BILLION (with a B!)    Amps of current flow capacity.
The main idea, is that you want to able to get all that current down to ground as quickly as possible and the more current capacity (i.e. lower resistance) you have to get all that energy elsewhere, the better.
(That's a Real World number, BTW. Where I used to work, we considered any grounding system measuring > ¼ Ohm as not being grounded, voiding our warranty.)

Most Technicians have Ohm meters, that can measure down to an Ohm.
Engineers have milli-ohm meters that can measure down to a thousandth, or even a millionth of an Ohm, when necessary. 
THAT'S the stuff they use to set up lightning mitigation equipment!! 
And that's the reason that grounding rods have torque specifications for the ground clamp nuts.
Their concern is for fastener tightness in a given cross sectional area, to get from say, .000000005 Ohms to .00000000025 Ohms.
Where this affects our two different fastener opinions, is that I feel a hose clamp might not be able to get the milliohm resistance as low as a threaded wing nut could.  (After all, the hose clamp force is distributed over the entire mast circumference.)  Even 2 hose clamps a foot apart, might not match the required torque/resistance requirements.
(And "feel" is all it is, until we all start whipping out the milli-ohm meters and measuring.)
On account of:
"If You Can Put A Number On It, It's Science; If You CAN'T Put A Number On It, It's VooDoo!!" 

With that background, the answer to your original question: (way back up at the top of the post!) 
"Would two hose clamps be better?"   
The answer is: I Don't Know. 
Another thing that Engineers fret about, is air gaps on fasteners, aggravating flash-over points along the strike path.
Like the gaps on either side of the braid, between the mast and the hose clamp.
Scenario 1: Strike travels down the mast, hits the upper hose clamp, flashes over and then blows out the clamp and the braid, and never reaches the lower hose clamp.
It's too busy exploding the cabin roof. 
Scenario 2: Strike travels down the mast, hits the upper hose clamp, explodes it apart and the upper hose clamp gives up its life, to save the lower hose clamp which then shunts the strike energy safely  to ground.
So which scenario, is the most likely? 
I DUNNO!! 

I have the "My Lightning Tracker" app on my phone set at a 40-mile radius to give me a heads up to hopefully give me time to get off the water if the radar shows it's coming my way.

OK  . . . . . . 
Not nay-saying this, I use something similar, myself; I would just admonish you to do the arithmetic REALLY Good!     
40 Mile Radius, huh? Those apps use data aggregation to do their magic and that means the data is at least 20 minutes old. 
So an isolated pop-up storm traveling 15 miles an hour, showing 40 miles out, is really 5 miles closer than you think!! 
A severe Super-Cell traveling at 40 - 50 mph for an average of 45 mph, and showing 40 miles out is really 15 miles closer than you think! 
A Squall line or Derecho, traveling at 60 mph, showing 40 miles out is really, uhhh . . . . visible from your transom!!   
Cool Tool, but give it a hefty grain of salt.
While we're still doing arithmetic don't forget T-D calculations.
If you're out on Lake Norman and more than 2 miles from shelter and your boat does maybe 4 knots . . . . . 
 . . . . . . you might beat the pop-up storm home, but for the other two, you're toast.

Food for thought,
Charles Brennan

#92

TSBB General Talk / Re: 2 videos on Low wattage ai...

Last post by Doug SC - Aug 04, 2026, 12:36 AM

I misspoke the wood and aluminum both come out being 17' 4". I got the used spinnaker pole for a quarter of the price of a similar length of new tubing. I would buy a mast from Gig Harbor, but they cost much more.

Would the stud in the mast also be aluminum or stainless? If stainless would the corrosion act as insulation? I thought that 2 hose clamps could increase the amount of contact area of copper to mast if spaced about a foot apart. Would that be of benefit? If not, one would be all I would use. I always have a Swiss army knife on me with a Philips on it. I would head for shore if possible but if not, I would like a backup plan. I can't count the times that I have pulled my canoe out on shore while paddling in FL during a boomer. Sailing on a multiday trip at the coast is where I would be most concerned but could also be caught out on lake Murray in the big water.

I have the "My Lightning Tracker" app on my phone set at a 40-mile radius to give me a heads up to hopefully give me time to get off the water if the radar shows it's coming my way.

I have a story of another friend that fell out of the labs electric fishing boat at the stern with the two long copper wire electrodes extended at the front of the aluminum boat and the loud gas generator running. They were sampling fish for a study on the lake. He was on Rodman Reservoir at night with two UF professors dipping up stunned fish. Their attention focused looking forward for fish to dip net. They couldn't hear him hollering. Each time he would swim close to the boat his mussels would spasm from the DC current getting stronger as he came closer to boat. After several tries, he managed to get into the boat and cut off the generator. That's when the professors realized something was up and turned around asking why he did that. Both oblivious to what had just happened. All he could think about was being left in the water in the dark as the boat moved away. There are some really big Gators in the water there. That was very motivating! He told them they were done for the night!

#93

TSBB General Talk / Re: 2 videos on Low wattage ai...

Last post by Charles Brennan - Aug 03, 2026, 09:46 PM

Doug,

I have a Frankenstein two-piece wooden mast that was the result of a broken masted being repaired. I am planning on replacing the solid wooded top section to reduce the weight with the aluminum. As it is now the bottom goes in first then I stand on the roof to join them together. 

If your replacement mast is indeed 17+ feet, you could replace both sections of the old mast with the new one and eliminate all that piecing together.

The hose clamps could sit below the top metal part of the mast on the wood below the boom in place to be quickly slid up onto the aluminum section and the copper slid under them then tightened. Does that sound better?

Sounds much better, though probably still not as good as a lug terminal on the copper braid being quickly attached to a stud on the mast, with a wing nut.  You would need either a screw driver or a nut driver handy, to lock down both hose clamps.  Big Fan of simple AND quick.  Also think a one-piece metal mast is even better, but clearly, I'm prejudiced.

I thought I would also put a dissipater on top for added protection. Would that alone reduce the chance of a hit?

Ohhh . . . .  so close . . . . 
The sticking point for me, is the word "alone".
A dissipator doesn't work alone, it works in conjunction with a ground plane.
The idea is that instead of directing a massive discharge to ground, it continuously leaks (dissipates) thousands of tiny discharges to ground, thus preventing a massive discharge ion streamer from forming, in the first place.
In that mode, they work very, very, well.

The trick here, is to get a marine rated one and not one of those junky ones, like they put on traffic CCTV cameras that you see at traffic intersections.  Anything less than a coupla hundred bucks should probably start throwing up the red flags. 
https://www.amazon.com/Forespar-Lightning-Master-Static-Dissipater/dp/B07G884393/

Is there any feeling, richer than being out with all your buddies, and being right? 
 
Hope this clarifies,
Charles Brennan

#94

TSBB General Talk / Re: 2 videos on Low wattage ai...

Last post by Doug SC - Aug 03, 2026, 09:00 PM

I wondered about the chain. Thought if it helped, I would do something like the anchor brake.

"Lessee here . . . . . aluminum mast, stainless steel hose clamps, attached to copper braid . . . . .
What an electrolytic stew you have there, My Man!! 
Sounds like about an ounce of Tef-Gel would be required to deal with that metal salad.

I have a Frankenstein two-piece wooden mast that was the result of a broken masted being repaired. I am planning on replacing the solid wooded top section to reduce the weight with the aluminum. As it is now the bottom goes in first then I stand on the roof to join them together. 

As for the braided copper and hose clamps. They would not be permeant. Copper braid and zinc would be stored. The hose clamps could sit below the top metal part of the mast on the wood below the boom in place to be quickly slid up onto the aluminum section and the copper slid under them then tightened. Does that sound better? Would two zincs improve the arrangement? My friends Potter 19 came from the Tampa Bay area and had a heavy copper wire run from the mast to the 300-pound galvanized daggerboard.

I thought I would also put a dissipater on top for added protection. Would that alone reduce the chance of a hit? I have seen numerous Scamp photos of the windvane on the roof in front of the mast.

I have been caught while sea kayaking in thunderstorms with nowhere to get out in both marsh and open water. More excitement than I was looking for. I do head to land when I can and try to get away from the immediate shoreline if possible.

Once while bowhunting in Colorado my two partners wanted to camp in a gap to make it easier to hunt both sides of the ridge. I told them I didn't think it was safe and pointed out 7 trees that had been hit by lighting. I was overruled. The next day at noon. A thunderstorm rolled in about noon. I was headed back to camp but instead huddled on the side of the mountain under a small spruce sitting on a dead log. After the storm pasted, I returned to camp. Randy was in camp when the storm came through. Lighting hit close around there but not in camp. He laid down on his sleeping pad in the tent and prayed. He said I was right and we moved camp.

#95

TSBB General Talk / Re: 2 videos on Low wattage ai...

Last post by Charles Brennan - Aug 03, 2026, 04:04 PM

Doug, Wow!!    Nobody can make me recoil in horror, better than a layman!! 

I was thinking of using a good quality jumper cable to the anchor chain and use the anchor chain and anchor as the ground.

Uhh . . . . only if you weld all the  chain links together, first. 
Remember, we're trying to divert hundreds or thousands of Amps into the local ground plane (the water).
Simply not enough conductive surface area between links, to be useful.
Using it in fresh water lakes (instead of salt water) would make it even less effective, and only add insult to injury.

I like the braided copper better than the jumper cable idea and laying it against the mast using several hose clamps to hold it down.

Lessee here . . . . . aluminum mast, stainless steel hose clamps, attached to copper braid . . . . .
What an electrolytic stew you have there, My Man!! 
Sounds like about an ounce of Tef-Gel would be required to deal with that metal salad.

I also like the idea of the zinc block.

Yeah, me too; it's the most bang for the least buck, compared to a bronze Dyna-Plate.
Don't believe me?!?
https://defender.com/en_us/marinco-guest-dynaplate-super-grounding-plate-4018?srsltid=AfmBOootwgJO1JnCOSH6GYdpCMY9eqIu96EpVDBEJG7QLPxhiRSRQfhK

Would running a strip of braided copper around the outside of the hull and inside of the skegs help?

Another scary idea!! 
Hard to know what your intent is.
In order to be useful, that copper hull girdle and skeg strips, would only work if all bonded together and run back to the mast.
Plus, how are you going to attach it?!? 
Use screws into the wood along the water line to hold the braid and you're making a future perforated rot line.
Epoxy it in place and you just insulated all that expensive copper braid.
(Although, the all-but guaranteed, flash-over would be a sight to see!)   
The inevitable dripping blue-green copper patina, might make for an interesting effect, though.

Also, I can't tell if you are looking for a permanent lightning mitigation system, or a temporary one.
My approach (if I implement it) is to sail around in a Blissful State of Benign Ignorance and when foul weather rears its ugly head, open a locker, fetch my gear and quickly attach my braid to the mast with a wing nut and toss the zinc over the side.
Using an anchor implies that you are already stopped somewhere and not intending to use the grounding system, while underway. 
My intent, is to let the zinc merrily troll alongside, while I head for immediate shelter!! 
Unless I'm really stuck out there and have to tough it out aboard, while curled up into a fetal position, inside the veranda!! 
Don't laugh!!    That position is not entirely unknown to me, while aboard, during lightning storms!! 
Think about it all some more and then get back to me with what you're trying to achieve, and how.
Another reason for giving a mitigation system significant thought, is because all this stuff doesn't work in fresh water, nearly as good as it does in salt water. Other than perhaps psychological comfort, the expense and effort might not justify the results.    
There's a reason that gear wasn't present at launching; still mulling over the cost/benefit trade-offs.

Hope this helps,
Charles Brennan

#96

TSBB General Talk / Re: 2 videos on Low wattage ai...

Last post by Doug SC - Aug 03, 2026, 03:08 PM

Thanks for sharing your insight, knowledge and experience. A couple of ideas on grounding. I bought a used 3" diameter aluminum spinnaker pole that is 17+ feet in length to replace my top wooden section on my two-piece mast. It will be set over a wooden bottom section that extends from the bottom of the boat to above the cabana roof. I was thinking of using a good quality jumper cable to the anchor chain and use the anchor chain and anchor as the ground. I like the braided copper better than the jumper cable idea and laying it against the mast using several hose clamps to hold it down. I also like the idea of the zinc block. Would running a strip of braided copper around the outside of the hull and inside of the skegs help?

#97

TSBB General Talk / Re: 2 videos on Low wattage ai...

Last post by Charles Brennan - Aug 03, 2026, 02:25 PM

Doug, I watched the A/C video and was moderately impressed.
Moderately impressed at how I have not been keeping up with technology since I retired several years ago, that is.  Key to that, was that amazing little compressor with an efficiency that I would have not believed possible, a decade ago.
That said, the guy definitely talks exactly like the Engineers I used to work with.
50 - 60 Watts average consumption sounds really good, (less than the 80 watts of my CPAP machine) until a little later in the video he mentions that it is predicated on a 28% duty cycle from the compressor.  Or even further into the video, where he mentions using a potentiometer to vary the compressor cycling.  In other words, he's cherry picking his facts just a little, to get to those amazing numbers.  (Which would still be impressive, even in real-use case examples.)

The 2nd video (which you made me dig for, since there wasn't a link) ; here it is, BTW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PurMG7KHdW4

Made me uncomfortable, since I KNOW I haven't any real good options for lightning mitigation on my SCAMP, other than the usual Party Line:
Minimizing lightning risk for small dinghies involves getting off the water immediately, or staying low in the boat, and avoiding metal parts if caught. Because small dinghies lack enclosed cabins or heavy built-in grounding systems, personal safety and evacuation are your only reliable protections.

On my previous boat, which was made from more conventional construction practices, I could use the mast as a down conductor, add a stout wire from the mast step to the 400 lb cast-iron swing keel and have some reasonable assurance of survival.
The boat took two strikes in fact, and I'm still here, writing about it. The only way I could have improved what I had, would have been to add a static dissipator to the top of the mast. (At the cost of being able to use my Windex, up there.)

SCAMP construction precludes all that.
No big hunks of metal underwater; in fact, no big hunks of metal at all.
I do have an aluminum mast instead of a wooden one, so at least I have a down-conductor, but that does me no good without an efficient way to route all those amps to the water.
One thing that some sailors use, to try to mitigate a lightning strike is a zinc fish:
You cannot view this attachment.
The idea is that you clip the little clamp onto a side stay (which the SCAMP doesn't even have!) and drop it in the water, so that a lightning strike on the mast travels along the mast and follows that puny conductor down to the water.
In reality, the zinc doesn't have nearly enough surface area to be useful as a ground plane in the water.  But that doesn't really matter, because that dumb little wire would have behaved more like a fuse than a conductor, and evaporated long before that zinc had a chance to do anything useful.
The real purpose of the fish zinc, is as an additional preventive against corrosion, when boating in strange marinas where you don't know what kind of Galvanic Mischief might be coming from surrounding boats.

But just because it's not the right device for this particular implementation (strike mitigation) doesn't mean that the idea is totally useless.
Get a decent 4" X 6" block of zinc, like this one:
You cannot view this attachment.
And then get a decent conductor, like this one:
You cannot view this attachment.
That is 5/8" braided copper.  Why not just use a thick hunk of stranded tinned copper? 

Without getting too much into the Electrical Weeds, one characteristic of a lightning strike is an electrical phenomenon called "skin effect", where the voltage tends to flow most easily on the surface of the conductor.
This means that solid copper wire isn't as efficient as stranded copper wire, and stranded copper wire isn't as efficient as braided copper.  Makes for much more usable cross sectional area of conductivity.
Also, you simply need a sufficient mass of conductor area to route through the thousands of Amps (however brief!)  running down the mast. 

The final "gotcha" is colloquially called "flash-over".
In normal electrical usage, it's where voltage arcs across an insulator to get to another conductor.
When used around lightning, it means that if there isn't a sufficient conductive path for the amount of the lightning strike, it simply jumps through space and makes its OWN PATH!!   
So THERE!! 
Where this is pertinent to marine lightning mitigation installations, is that the attachment hardware from the braid to the mast constitutes a significant flash-over risk.
In Other Words, you're trying to do everything right, and you still get bit.
Hard.
Still and all, doing something is always better than doing nothing.
Which is what I have been doing, so far. 
And I am at significant risk, on board the Irish Pennant.

So far, the discussion has been the voltage from lightning strikes, but another (IMHO more) serious issue is RF inductive coupling.
You ever drive down the road during a thunderstorm and see a flash off in the distance and get a simultaneous burst of static, on your radio?    That's your radio detecting the RF component of a lightning strike and converting it to audio sound.  The RF field from a close-by lightning strike is strong enough to damage anything electronic, that is susceptible to RF induction.

Another analogy:
You remember the original crystal set radios?  They had an antenna, an inductor, (coil of wire) a capacitor, a hunk of selenium crystal detector, (later replaced by PN junction diode semiconductors) an earth ground and finally, a set of head phones. Get the right number of coils of wire and you could hear different radio stations. 
What does this have to do with Marine Electronics? 
The wiring going from your battery to wherever, constitutes a small inductor, (as well as an antenna) the insulation between the wires constitutes a small capacitor and the first PN junction of any solid state device hooked onto the battery wiring constitutes the detector.
So what you have is an old-fashioned crystal radio set, missing only the headphones and the earth ground.
The point is, the incredibly strong RF field adjacent to the lightning strike doesn't even have to actually strike the boat, in order to take out the electronics on board; it only has to be reasonably close. It will destroy the first PN junction, in the first solid-state chip it gets to.

So a SCAMP strike, without any mitigation equipment, would involve a few different things:
1) Direct strike:
The bolt hits the mast, travels down until it reaches the bottom of the mast trunk and has nowhere else to go.
SURPRISE!!  (Can you say: "Flash-over"?!?!?) 
Those wonderful boil-proof adhesives in the BS-1088 Okoume marine plywood immediately ignite and explode a hole in the bottom of the boat.  Good thing, John Welsford designed in all that extra flotation.  Too bad, most of the flotation is in the cabin, which makes the odds of getting back in, at around 50%. 
2) RF Induction:
First to go out are the BMS modules on the LFP batteries which if we're lucky, merely switch off the battery and if we're not so lucky, give us our very first test of the battery disconnects and the battery jettison straps, when the batteries catch fire.
Second to go out are the solar controllers, the smart shunt, LED NAV lights and any toys that happen to be plugged in to the 12 Volt DC sockets and finally, the trolling motor electronics. (And why I insist on having on-board oars.) 
Depending on the intensity of the RF field, we may or may not, lose the hand-held VHF, hand-held GPS, MP3 player, and the cell phone.  Why not put the portable stuff in a potato chip can, used like a Faraday Shield? 
Because, grasshopper, a Faraday shield doesn't work unless attached to a hefty ground plane, somewhere. 

Let's assume that I went out and got the zinc block and the braid and made an attachment point on the side of the mast near the top of the mast trunk, so I could (for example) screw a ¼-20 wing nut onto the lug through the hefty copper braid fitting.
I repeat: Can you say: "Flash-over"?!?!? 
That would be the weak link in such a system and why I'm still dragging my feet, at implementing it. 
(Still worrying about it, though.) 

For now, I'm just trying to live right, washing my hands frequently, donating to both political parties, going to church regularly and making sure the bucket for bailing is always close at hand, when sailing the SCAMP

Otherwise, I'm open to any ideas, Out There.
Charles Brennan

#98

TSBB General Talk / Re: New Boat

Last post by Noemi - Ensenada 20 - Aug 02, 2026, 08:08 PM

I hope you invited Urchin's new owner to come join us here.

#99

TSBB General Talk / Re: Washboards vs opening Comp...

Last post by Spot - Aug 02, 2026, 03:08 PM

Here are some pics from the simpler version of the first screen.

The only sticking (literally) point was using self-stick basting tape without having a filled-in weave to absorb and wipe adhesive. I had to cut the thread and clean the needle every 8"(200mm)or so. The second pass of stitching without the adhesive had no concerns or restarts.

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#100

Tales and Trip Reports / Re: One less January . . . . ....

Last post by Riley Smith - Aug 02, 2026, 01:14 PM

Tishomingo State Park is a GREAT place, one of the finest in Mississippi imho. I just wish I lived within range of it! I've only been once but it was a fine place and a LONG way from the coast. And yes, Wolverine, I'm glad y'all are still kicking about with each other. That mental toughness is a big part of old age I'm beginning to believe.