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Phil wrote:
>  Yes, bad idea.  Lightning will follow the path of least resistance
 >     and the chain sounds like a high resistance path.  Some energy will
 >     leak this way but most "may" find another path to ground.

I'd have to challenge you on that comment Phil.  I think George's idea
of a chain has a great precedent - Captain James Cook on his 1768-1770
voyage of exploration on Endeavour!

"The onset of winter drove Endeavour off course, and on April 19, the
ship arrived off New Holland (Australia). Nine days later, Endeavour
entered Botany Bay (just south of modern Sydney), which they named "for
the great quantity of New Plants & ca" collected there over the next
week. Endeavour sailed again on May 6, skirting the coast of Australia
until June 10, when the ship was holed on the Great Barrier Reef near
Cape Tribulation (15?47S, 145?34E). "This was," wrote Cook, "an alarming
and I may say terrible Circumstance and threatend immidiate destruction
to us as soon as the Ship was afloat." It took two days to free the
ship, and the leak was only stopped by fothering, that is, drawing a
sail impregnated with oakum under the ship's bottom to stop the leak.
Nine days later, Cook landed at what is now Cooktown. Repairs to the
ship lasted six weeks, during which Lieutenant Gore shot and stuffed a
kangaroo. After claiming New Holland for the British Crown, Cook sailed
Endeavour through the Torres Strait, stopping at Savu Island (west of
Timor), and then sailing on to the Dutch entrep?t at Batavia (now
Jakarta). There, thanks to an "electrical chain" Cook ordered set up for
the purpose, Endeavour survived a bolt of lightning that did serious
damage to a Dutch East Indiaman".

I personally have always thought James Cook was an exceptional navigator
and seaman!

Lisa

   

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