Oso nosed into Skull Creek Marina on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina for a quick stop. Tied to a dock again for the first time since Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, we topped off the diesel tanks and washed the boat, Mike’s mom flew out for a visit and we spent time with friends in Beaufort, SC, who had graciously accepted and stored several packages of boat repair parts at their house.
The night before our departure, the typical afternoon storm clouds formed – deep booms of thunder rattled the rigging and streaks of lightning appeared in the west. Lightning storms are one of our least favorite types of weather, and we went to sleep with an uneasy feeling.
Just after one in the morning, we were awoken by a violent crack of thunder and a very, very bright flash of lightning. About half the lights aboard Oso came on, along with various pumps and several of the furling motors that control the sails, and the bilge alarm blared.
Oso had suffered a direct lightning strike (we later found out it was directly at the top of the mast), and the resulting energy surge traveled into the boat’s electrical system. Most of the electronics onboard were destroyed (some smoking, some with just a faint burning smell, and some just not working with no outward signs of damage), including the switching system that controls the electrical system aboard the boat.
When that switching system was destroyed by the lightning strike, some switches failed in an open position, but some failed in a closed position. Two of the closed switches controlled our sail furlers, and others controlled various pumps and motors onboard.
Once we were able to figure out what had happened, we quickly disconnected the batteries from any of their loads, thereby stopping any motors that were running. In the driving rain and flashing lightning, we used the manual override on the furlers to wind the sails back into storage mode, and began to assess the damage.
The list of damaged parts is long, and it will be an equivalently long time before Oso is ready to leave the dock again. But the good news is that the crew is safe, and the boat isn’t taking on any water. So for now, Hilton Head is our temporary home, and we begin the process of sorting out the damage and repairs with our insurance company.
