Lightning! Gratitude Fried, Andy Survived

We need to talk about Hurricane Isaias, which blew over Gratitude, as well as a few other topics (it’s been a week.) But before we go there…

We are in Charleston, South Carolina, the Holy City, docked at the City Marina. Weeks ago, when we were in Florida, our wind indicator instrument quit working. It still showed the right wind speed, but it always displayed that the wind was coming from the port side, no matter the actual direction. As you can guess, wind direction is a critical component of sailing, so we compensated by looking at the direction our big US flag was blowing. After all, Columbus didn’t have a fancy wind instrument on his boats. I procured a new instrument, but I had been putting off going up the mast to install it. 

And that is because the wind instrument sits all the way at the very tip-top of the mast. I’d been up that far once before, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience, and I had groused about doing it for a few days. I’m not afraid of heights, but going up there gets somewhat intense. The trick I’ve found is to only look up; never look down unless you really have to. 

After a lot of black coffee, I decided that Thursday, August 6 was the day. About 10:15 a.m., I connected the boatswain’s (pronounced “boson’s”) chair to the halyard (the very strong line that we use to raise and lower the big main sail). We tested and inspected everything with my weight while it was just over the deck, and once we were satisfied that things were secure, Karen began to carefully raise me 75 feet straight up. 

Now, the boatswain’s chair is a sort of nylon sling that you sit in. It has a small back support and a bag for tools or spare parts or whatever else you might see fit to carry up in the air with you. I was bringing myself, a couple of wind-related instruments, and my trusty multitool. It’s important to be able to communicate while we are doing this, so we use bluetooth headsets to talk the entire time. 

I’ll point out that our mast has a few supports, shrouds, and attachments here and there, but mostly, it is a bare, aluminum spar that doesn’t offer steps or handholds. Your life is completely dependent upon your First Mate, the integrity of the halyard, and the boatswain’s chair itself. The whole procedure necessarily occupies 100% of your attention. 

So, up I went. Karen used the electric winch to lift me. We stopped every 20 feet or so to assess things and make sure everything looked and felt okay. I kept hold of the mast or shrouds or whatever I could grab, constantly inspecting the halyard, the securing shackle, and the chair as I ascended. 

When I got up, seven-and-a-half stories to the very top, I wrapped my legs around the mast and locked my ankles in case any unforeseen malfunction happened, and I reached around and unscrewed the malfunctioning wind instrument.

There was a single rain cloud overhead that had blown in from the southeast. It was a dark, heavy-looking cloud, but there was nothing particularly alarming about it. Once it was over us, wind started blowing down on the boat, and the motion was amplified at the top of the mast, so I started undulating back and forth like the pendulum on a metronome. Karen and I joked about it over the headsets, and I held on tight and picked up the pace, working as swiftly as I could. 

I was trying to align the pins on the new wind instrument to attach it. I had some trouble getting it to properly seat, so I started to swing around to the front of the mast so I could get a direct view of what was going on.

And then something very unexpected happened.

I keep my head shaved these days, but my scalp started tingling fiercely. If I had hair, it would have been standing straight up. I can’t explain it any better than that. I’ve never felt a sensation like it. It wasn’t like being frightened – it was like small needles on my head. I didn’t connect the dots to what was happening, but – maybe a second later, KAPOW! 

I had been struck by freakin’ lightning!

More accurately, lightning had hit the mast and flowed to me. I am certain that I don’t have a completely accurate account of what happened, but here is the best I can explain it: everything happened in a split second. The shock blew my hands off of the mast. I felt it all over but most severely in my hands, scalp, eyes, and ears. I heard a very loud “POP” and saw blue electricity dancing and crackling on the aluminum mast in front of me. Thunder cracked instantaneously. It was the worst electrocution I’ve ever experienced (and I’ve had my share). I let go of the mast and swung freely aft, supported by the halyard. I started screaming “Get me down! Get me down! I’ve been struck by lightning!” All I could think is that it was about to happen again and I would be fried. Karen, to her credit, kept her cool and brought me down very quickly and efficiently. 

{Karen here: I was definitely not cool in that moment. From my position at the helm, I saw a bolt of lightning over land a little east of us, and heard an almost simultaneous crack of thunder. When Andy started yelling that he’d been hit, I had two thoughts at once. One was a kind of denial – “No, that didn’t hit him, I saw it strike over there.” And the second was, “Lightning! It’s not safe for him up there!” Normally bringing him down is a slow and cautious exercise. But I was in that peculiar kind of adrenaline rush that makes your heart beat fast but also makes you wonderfully focused. It was a panic that actually helped me tune out Andy’s yelling and stay laser-pointed on paying out the line that would bring him back to safety. I also had an awareness, more than an actual thought, that if he’s talking to me, he’s still alive. So I kept minimal control of the line and a single wrap on the winch and let gravity do what it wanted to, much more rapidly than ever before. Time was of the essence.}

(Andy) There was another guy, on a neighboring yacht a couple of hundred yards away, who was also working high up the mast. Although he was closer to the visible strike, he appeared to be unaffected. Our best theory is that the lightning bolt that Karen saw struck over land about 1/10 mile away and branched/arced to the top of Gratitude’s mast, which happened to be right beside my head at that particular moment.  

One big risk with being in a boatswain’s chair is that you can flip out backward and fall. Even though it’s unlikely, it happens to professionals every year. I am very thankful to have come out of this basically unscathed. I didn’t suffer burns or any noticeable physical harm, and I never really felt close to losing consciousness. If that bolt had hit me directly, or hard enough to cause me to flip out of the sling, that would have been it.

Thunder and lightning continued through the early afternoon. I tried to drive our rental car to lunch, but I was too rattled to do it. I stayed in the marina instead. I spent the next four hours with my heart racing and my eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare. My vision was very blurry for about four hours after the strike, but then everything seemed to settle down and return to normal.

{Karen again: This incident affected me slightly differently than it did Andy. I did not, of course, have any of the physical side effects of a brush with death, but I definitely had an emotional aftershock the day after this event. It was frightening to realize how easily this story could have ended tragically. I am not ready to do life without my partner-in-everything; just beginning to imagine what that would be like made me wobbly. Andy had to do all the driving on Friday; he had recovered his equilibrium, but I was spacy, shaky, and rattled. The best word I could find to describe my overall mental state was “Vulnerable.” The next day, after I had recovered some composure, I felt incredibly grateful for God’s mercy in sparing Andy’s life.}

(Andy) Late Thursday afternoon, after the skies had cleared, I paid a professional $100 cash to go up and finish the job of installing the new wind instrument. It took him all of 10 minutes. I think that was the best money I’ve spent all year. 

I have been thoughtful about the crazy, improbable confluence of events that led to this. I have probably spent a grand total of about an hour working up the mast over 19 months. We have sustained two lightning strikes in that time, and I happened to be at the very top of the mast for one of them. What are the odds? I’m incredibly grateful to my Creator that things didn’t end differently.

And it appears we won’t be going anywhere until I trace down exactly what the lightning bolt cooked on the port engine. I’m just thankful it wasn’t me.