Ian,

Thanks again for all you've contributed.

I'm leaning away from doing anything at this point, aside maybe from some
more secondary bonding of the toe rail, simply because of the risk
statistics for the areas I plan to sail. I'm in the northeast. 20% of
boats in the water year round in Florida get struck. 90% of those only
experience electronics damage. Less than 10% develop leaks. From the total
safety aspect, my time and money are probably better spent elsewhere.

It's still on the table though and I had an epiffany looking at the boat
this morning. The mast is far enough forward that the keel situation is
actually like this:

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Keel.jpg

(This is an update of an earlier drawing. This discussion is time dependent
as the links will expire anyway on 15 December 2008)

This is far enough forward in the keel that there probably isn't very much
ballast in that section. The structure is sufficiently massive and easy to
repair and work on that, if I do anything, I should probably excavate from
the outside and install suitably radiused and massive conductors closely in
line with the mast support. Two big advantages aside from not trying to
construct an intricate metal fabrication at arms length bent over a small
hatch:

1) I verify that I don't have pockets of water or uncured resin that could
create a massive steam explosion.

2) Main charge from mast is conducted below fiberglass bilge floor from
which it is less likely to turn 180 and flash back up into the boat.

The boat could use a bit more ballast so I would probably run something like
a piece of 3" bronze boat shafting right through the keel and then install
longer bolts in the mast support step that ran down to contact this. I
would then drill from each side at the shallowest angle I could for
something like 3/4" bronze boat shafting. The exit points would be lightly
epoxied over to keep out water. The front portion of the keel would be
copper sheathed, nice from an anti-fouling standpoint anyway, and the ends
of the conductors drilled and tapped with bronze machine screws run through
the copper for electrical contact.

This is how it would look:

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Ground2.jpg

If I do run into ballast pigs, I'll just figure out a way to bond them
between the mast base and the copper ground sheet.

--
Roger Long