Lightning!

Lighting on the DQ

I was on her when we went through a bad Thunderstorm with lots of lighting and the ship wasnt hit once during it bur the river bouys were I was out in it It scare the willys out of me . The lighting hit about 10 to 20 feet in front of us the thunder was deafing and the hairs on my neck stode up and I uttered a expletive and ran inside. It didnt hit the boat but hit trees and bouys in the River.

One night we had a storm on a Belle of Louisville trip. We did not get hit by lightning from the sky. When we passed under the Big Four Bridge a bolt of lightning flashed from the bridge down to our foremast. It scared us half to death in the pilothouse, but no one was hurt. Later we examined the foremast and there was not a mark on it.

Alan: Thanks for the input. In designing a boat, did you include lightning rods? It would seem to me that the stacks would route any voltage to the hull, thence to the river. I have been shown that a lightning rod is pointed and that its function is as much to discharge the cloud gradually as to lead a sudden strike safely to ground...if you look at some of the grounding wire attached to the rods, it is fairly obvious that the latter is a more or less impossible function. Cap'n Walnut.

Lightening On The River !

Greetings From New Orleans ,
During my tenure on the Str.'s Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen , I can honestly say that neither bad weather or lightening for that matter ever came into play . However , on one of the Str. Mississippi Queen's , Sea Trials , out of the Jeff Boat Ship Yard , we had to cut the trial short due to some inclement weather that did make Christians out of the Pilot House crew . On another Str. Mississippi Queen , Sea Trial , we had to bring the boat back in early because the engineers were suffocateing due to the lack of forced ventilation in the boats Engine Room . Woosises !!
In a different time and on a different vessel I did experience first had the effects of lightening on a vessel in the river ! I was on boad a relative small chemical tanker and just place her along side the IMTT Avondale terminal on a wet summer day just after a rather hard rain and the water had not drained out the scuppers on the Port Wing Bridge . I was in deck shoes and the water was ankel deep so I elected to remove my shoes and go bare foot on the steel deck of the Wing Bridge . The Captain of the ship and I were discussing the mooring arrangement when out of no where and with no warning , a bolt of lightening strikes the ship's forwar'd King Post with such force that it was literally blown off the bow of the ship and thrown mid way across the Mississippi River . No only did the Captain feel the thunderous concussion of the Lightening Strike but there I am in ankel deep rain water , bare foot and standing on a steel deck less that three hundred feet from the bow of the ship where the Lightening struck ! Needless to say , that both the Captain and I ran into the Bridge of the ship and were actually momentarily deaf from the explosion of the Lightening ! After the Catpain and I regained our composure he explained to me how well these ships are grounded and insulated from such Lightening Strikes but in all of my 59 years of perpetual motion this was the closest for me to encounter the wrath of Mother Nature !
Smooth Sailing !
Ted Davisson

Tom Schiffer;22148 wrote: The weather services recommend to stay indoors during lightning storms. What was the policy on the DQ, MQ and AQ? Was it a problem? I worry with pax in my little steamer in the middle of the river...seems like a real target for lightning. Cap'n Walnut.

No, I never thought about it. After all, the masts, stacks, antenna and the rest of the high steel parts are welded to together with the hull and act as lightning rods. I have talked with several pilots who have told me they've never been on a boat that was hit by lightning.

Policy?

Policy? What's that? Weather, fair or foul, we just plodded along 'away back when'. The DELTA QUEEN was zapped twice in 1970-'71 while I was aboard.

The first time we were upbound below Booth Point on the Lower Mississippi, below Carruthersville, Mo., when we ran into what weather buffs, these days, call a Super Cell. It was ominous and terribly frightening, but the Pilot, Captain Harry Hamilton, paid the approaching storm little heed, and the same indifference to danger was displayed by Captain Wagner. Though I would have liked to have been somewhere else down below, I forced myself to maintain my composure from where I sat on the lazy bench behind my elders. For some reason, I turned and looked at the base of the smoke stack an instant before a thick, greasy bolt of electricity hit the chimney and leaped across the gap and onto the steam line for the whistle. The thunderclap made time stand still, but though the lightening went directly down the live steam line to the boilers, no damage or injuries occurred.

The second bolt that hit the DELTA QUEEN happened at a different time, and Vic Tooker, who was holding a microphone while doing his thing in the Texas Lounge, was thrown across the room and into a wall, or bulkhead. He was 'all shook up', and not from his imitation of the King of Rock and Roll.

When I was sailing in the Bermuda Triangle aboard the ACADIAN VICTORY, a 180-foot off-shore supply boat with concrete poured into the hull for stability, we left Bermuda and into a tropical storm with 30-foot seas and near hurricane force winds. There's nothing like being aboard a tiny craft on thirty-foot waves "to straighten yer head right out". Thank you, JH.

Shipyard: I have never been in a boat/ship in a lightning strike but have been in an aircraft that was struck by lightning. The odd thing was the thunder. It occurred at the same instant that the lightning struck and there was no delay nor was there any "rolling" or bouncing of the thunder off of distant hills. Just a simple and as you say, 'time stopping' POW and the cabin lit up like the inside of a flash-bulb! The pilot announced that the ILS system was kaput and made a visual approach and safe landing into Washington DC out of Boston and we were put on another plane. Congressman Clancy boarded at Washington, like me bound for Ragtown for the weekend, saying that no way was he getting on that stricken plane. Don't remember the airline nor the equipment involved other than it was a big passenger jet...thinks mebbe American 707 or a Connie 990 (this was before 1975). I had dinner with you on the GVII on Friday June 11. The very next Tuesday on June 15 at the shoot in Friendship, Indiana, we had one of those impressive thunderheads roll in. I slept soundly thru it in my "tin tipi" but many others on the Primitive Range were under canvas. Eric Bye, my MB editor said that he had trouble holding on to his tent in the terrific wind. He was holding onto a metal gun rack when lightning struck nearby and he got a "pretty good jolt". At least one other, a pedestrian, was knocked down. Again, no injury but some very sober reflections as to just who is in charge here! Reviewing all this, it sounds as if I should head MISS DEMEANOR or MISS FORTUNE for shore when one comes up but then what?? Go home and hide under the bed?? Cap'n Walnut

Keep clear of the boiler, tiller, and anything else metallic ... and pray.

Try:
Eclipse hit by Lightning

Keep clear of anything metallic... and pray. On a small boat lightening strikes are a real concern.

Eclipse hit by Lightning

Shipyard: Aw, Sam. Please don't let my First Mate see this! Sounds like under the bed not too good a choice if the springs are metal!! Down to your old haunt at Three Mile Creek on the Licking in MISS FORTUNE today. Had good run up and down but many boaters there feel that when they bought their boat, they bought exclusive use of the river too! We stayed out of Cincinnati Harbor (quite bouncy) and ran up above the 275 Bridge. It was a good run...burned about a bushel of wood; ran about a dozen or more miles. Cap'n Walnut.

Well a good friend of mine ,Mason Basten, owner of the James River Float Co. and former pro Kayaker says you are actually safer on the river as Lightning usually goes to land and things attatched to land. For what its worth.

I've noticed that electrical storms along the river seem (SEEM, I said) to hit trees along the shore rather than boats.

It is in small open boats that one is most vulnerable. Fishermen can be found fishing at almost any time or condition except when a storm blows up with lightning. Then they waste no time getting off the water. This seems to be a universal concensus among fishermen. There must be a reason.

At Caddo Lake we didn't worry too much about lightning, although we did not like to be in storms due to the wind. The lake is full of tall cypress trees and they were the lightning magnets. Lightning could blow them apart from top to bottom.

Awe, thanks folks. The more I know the confusder I gets! In review of all of this, it appears that if you are in a boat or anywhere else, for that matter and lightning strikes near you, you had better not be in the PATH of the lightning. A bird can sit with impunity on a 138,000 volt high line and not be harmed. The repair person can sit in his insulated bucket and work on that same line while it is "hot". But, woe betide either one if he or she gets between that charged line and a ground! On board ship, you would be safe if you were not in that path. Toots had a microphone in his hand...which became charged by a lightning stike, and he was between it and the deck. Had he been better grounded (wet feet) it likely would have killed him on the spot. It did not directly affect anyone else in the lounge because they did not have a charged mike in their hands. If you are in a small boat, unless you are well grounded, the lightning may not bother YOU but might blow a hole in the bottom of your boat! Lotsa water might come in! So, mebbe run for shore line and let the trees take the rap? Cap'n Walnut.

DQ Lightening Hit

I was on the DQ when it was hit while docked at Florence, AL on August 3 of 2001. It shook the boat pretty good. No serious damage but I did get a souvenir. The picture is one of the ornate wood decorations split in half.

Jerry, I remember that lightning strike at Florence that day, I was in the wheelhouse and actually saw it hit the flag pole on the starboard stern of the hurricane deck, quite a surprise! I have seen the Delta Queen struck a few times, and though it does happen occasionally it is unusual on larger vessels with tall metal stacks or masts because of the "Ferriday Effect".

Interesting subject. Here’s what George Byron Merrick has to say about lightening strikes in his “Old Times on the Upper Mississippi,” page 110: “Many steamboats were struck by lightening, but few were burned, the electrical bolt being [passed down the stacks and] diffused through the iron of the boilers and the machinery, and finding ready escape through the water-wheel shafts into the river. Engineers were known to get severely shocked, but never killed, from touching the machinery when lightening passed through it. They learned to keep their hands off the throttle wheel except in dire emergency."

Is that the same Tom Jansing that rode the DQ as a boy back in the 50's? If so, it's been a long, long time.