Thunder and lightning

Last night was quite spectacular with lightning flashing mostly closer to land, and we could hear a bit of rumbling every now and then. On the top of our mast we have a solid aluminum rod, and at the bottom of our shrouds dedicated holes that we can bolt two thick copper cables that will drag in the water. In theory this is a lightning conductor system should we suffer a direct hit. When a yacht is struck by lightning, it normally runs through and destroy all the electronic devices on board. The lightning was firstly far away, and only flashing in the clouds.

I was once sailing the Pacific and we had five huge thunderstorms surrounding us. It was quite eerie watching the night skies light up, and feeling the thunder rumbling right through the boat. We obviously follow the tracks of the cumulus nimbus clouds, and work our way around them if we can. The clouds we had were not cumulus nimbus clouds, just the cooler air from the ocean meeting the rising hot air from the land.

We dropped the gennaker at about six last night, and maintained a fair speed with just the genoa. At midnight Thomas and myself raised the gennaker again as the wind was very light, too light for the genoa. At three am I had to wake Thomas again to drop the gennaker. The wind was steadily building and better to be safe than sorry. We had just dropped the gennaker when the stronger winds reached us. Nothing hectic, but at the limit of what we would fly the gennaker in. Since then we have been sailing with the genoa, and making fair progress.

A few hours ago we had quite some rain that cooled the air a bit, and also washed any salt residue from the yacht.

We will be arriving in Fort Lauderdale sometime this weekend, and looking much forward to some time on land. Slowly but surely we are the miles are ticking away.

Hope things on your side is also quite relaxed.

Paul

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