Direct Lightening Strike

Lightening strike 16th October 2010
This is turning into one of the most eventful 2 weeks of my life - certainly Deep Blues most eventful two weeks. First we got water in the diesel, then line around the anchor and prop and now poor Deep Blue has had a direct hit by a lightening strike and simultaneously we had acrid smoke coming off the top and bottom of the mast.

The day started gloriously. We were in Knidos with Cenk and his writer friend. Last night Cenk cooked us a most delicious meal and we shared a bottle of Kos Rose which we had slipped into Kos to buy en-route from Bodrum. This morning we woke to the magic of Knidos - an ancient Roman site - and swam in the clear waters as the sun rose. We were not hungry, so after a shower, we upped anchor and motored towards Simi en-route to Bozburun, a trip of nearly 40 miles. We motored for a couple of hours before the wind got up just enough to hoist the Genniker, auto helm on and a bit of sunbathing while we sailed along at 5-6 knots. All was good in the world.

As we approached Simi we could see clouds gathering - very black clouds - and could hear rumblings of thunder. We decided that it would be prudent to take down the Genniker as it gets a bit of a handful above 10 knots. Andy went below to have a snooze and I watched the gathering clouds. Simi, now behind us, slowly disappeared from view as the clouds got lower and nearer. Thunder crashed around us. Then the rain came - I had my olies on but still the water crept up the arms. Now the lightening was flashing around us just seconds before the claps of thunder. It was getting quite scary. Andy told me to stay in the cockpit. Stupidly I ignored him because I wanted to use the lovely clean water to clean the decks and was on the side deck when CRASH…. I felt a jolt right through me and smelt burning. The top of the mast was smoking like a fired gun and I thought the sail was on fire. Down below, the main cabin light was blown off its fixing and brought down the head-lining. Smoke filled the cabin and then dissipated. It was dramatic to say the least and I was very shaken.

Not aware of the disaster below I called to Andy to help me on deck. We rolled the foresail on the Furlex in the pouring rain as the wind increased. We looked up the mast - the aerial was gone as was the navigation light and the wind-ex. Andy was soaked and went back down below to see what else was broken.

Well basically everything is f****d. We have no self-steering, no depth-sounder, wind speed or direction, no AIS, VHF radio, radar and no navigation lights. The main cabin light is gone, stereo and fridge are all blown up. It is total devastation. By some miracle the chart plotter and GPS have survived, the boat batteries seem OK and our computers survived despite being plugged in. We needed the chart plotter as we were now completely surrounded by cloud and were approaching rocks and islands.

We limped into Bozburun as the skies cleared and arrived here to find that the storm had missed them and life was normal just 5nm away from where we were struck by the lightening!