Year: 1870

How FesIsA Ysch. sa strHc With


A yachting correspondent of the New York
Eoening Post gives the following experience of
lightning stroke:- se.. 14s sS-t.. .,


We were comfortable, head to the wind the
first fury over, nothing worse to blow and the
anchor true to its holding. 1t might rain a
deuge, but we were quite at home with water
in any amount. But suddenly there came
crash as of ten thousand cOlumbiads fired at
once, or rather crash that no words can de-
scribe, with binding daze, as if we were enve-
loped in a seething furnace. To the curious in
personal experience could give any idea of the
sensation. The order of subsequent
impressions was as follows:-A recov.
cry of sense sufficient to know l was still
alive and unhurt, with the conviction that if it
had been otherwise there would have been no
consciousness of what had happened; an anxiety
for companions and rejoicing that no one of
them was hurt feeling as though the atmos-
phere was full of vapor or smoke; very strong,
almost suffocating, odor of ozone, which soon
penetrated and filled the cabin, that which is
generally termed erroneously sulphurous
smell; and, lastly, the full consciousness that
lightning had struck very near u.s. as one was
persistent ia saying, in the water few feet
from us.


1t was all over and we were safe at least. But
when the rain held up and we began to stir
around, long fresh splinter of wood was found
| in the cockpit. This startling discovery along
| with others of the same kind in other places,
showed that we had no time to lose, for the
pieces were from the mast, and there was
| no telling but that the hull had been
penetrated beneath the step, and we might
be even then filling with water. An
anxious search from stem to stern re-
vealed that the mast, as far as we could reach
was intact; that an eye-bolt on the sail had
been, by some strange freak, broken off, and
that in two places on the hull at the water line
| sphnters two inches or more long had been
gouged out of the sides just over two nail
heads, without, however, communicating with
the interior. In fact we were still water-tight.


What saved us from destruction? In the first
flush of morning light we discovered the top
mast head all smashed as with downward
blow, and looking very much like demoralized
brush broom standing on end. About one foot
below the head is a band of copper, to which are
! attached five stays-two main shrouds, two
backstays, and forestay carried down to
the end of the bowsprit these are all of
| galvanized iron-wire, and acted as so many
lightning-rods to disperse the stroke and
which reached the bowsprit connected
| with the bobstay-an iron rod connecting
with the stem at the waters edge. The others
connected with the chain-plates- on the sides,
reaching quite to the water, though we were
very likely heeled over at the moment. 1t was
beneath and little TO one side of these that the
nailheads spoken of seemed to have been
started. The value of wire rigging has been
much debated. Our own experience
has convinced us that it has not
alone sufficient elasticity, and should always
be mounted with hempen lanyards. 1t can
hardly be so firmly spliced but that sudden
strain will part it, aside from the stiffness which
kills motion; but wire rigging has saved In thi,
case seven lives, and though the accident of
lightnings stroke is of the rarest, a careful sea
man could hardly wish to be without 1t. Having
been once through such a scene, it is something
TO look back upon with wonder, with unfeigneC
thankfulness at the deiverance from peril, ant
with the hope that the like we may never se'
again.