Having a kayak made of one material or another probably has nothing to do with the porbablility of a lightning strike; the ground conductivity is a much larger factor. The human body has remarkable high conductivity- on the order of a few dozen ohms, once the skin has been wet or broken- so we're great conductors. But has nothing to do with attracting lightning, either; in fact, lighting doesn't pass through the body of a victim, according to the medical references I found, but over the surface, which makes sense given the short pulse duration. Where lightning strikes seems to be a consequence mainly of the position of the thunderstorm generating it: The areas with the highest updrafts generate most of the lightning. Areas with an updraft velocity of over 90 m/sec have flash rates over 1 per second, which mean if that area passes overhead you have a pretty high probability of getting hit no matter what kind of boat you're in. Interestingly the areas with high updrafts aren't necessarily characterized by heavy rain at ground level, so being in a clearing in the storm doesn't mean you're in a safe area. -- mike -------------------------- Michael Edelman http://foldingkayaks.org http://findascope.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
>so being in a clearing in the storm doesn't mean you're in a safe area. So what I've learned about kayaking is that lightning and bears are both unpredictable. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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