There are several schools of thought on bonding the mast. Most believe in
bonding a nority seem to think the a bonded mast is an invitation to the
lightening "here I am! Over here! Come and strick me."

I think these people are in denial, with their head-in-the-sand.

A friend of mine was rafted beside another sail boat with no mast
bonding/grounding.. A lightening bolt hit the ungrounded mast, jumped chain
plate to chain plate to my friends boat and through his lightening bonding
system, to the water. Burned out electornics on both boats and scorched the
gel coat around their chain plates.

Regarding the use of Dynaplates, not recommended. It is claimed that due to
the pores nature of these plate, the lighten strike will boil the water in
these pores and cause it the plate to explode.

A flat plate with a lot of edge is what is recommended. In other words, a
12X12 inch plate would have only 48 inches of edge to disipate the
lightening strike while a 4X36 inch plate, while having the same surface
area, has 80 inches of edge to disipate the lightening strike.

ABYC has some specific recommendations on the lighting bonding plate and the
internal bonding wires.. I rememeber something about min. bend radius of 6",
not parallel with other wire runs, etc.


--
My opinion and experience. FWIW

Steve
s/v Good Intentions