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No it's lighting. It says strike master on the lable. Not bird master.
I had one. Boat was never hit (not saying much) and practical sailor panned them.
They are technically ion dissipators to in theory bleed off charge slowly from the structure.
I have a whip antenna on the mast head that probably does the same thing. The only boat I ever owned thus far to get hit was the only one without a whip antenna on it. I sharpen the point on them with a file.
Ix
this is a never ending topic.
as a group of sailors and navigators, we have experienced lightning strikes.
My sailboat was struck and simply demasted. I wasn't on it ... Not a mac at the time. My friend's cottage was strucked, his house burned and he got hit trying to tie his fishing boat the wind was blowing away from the sandy beach, he was so lucky he made it with only a knee blow out, and his wife got the hull out of the house.
He rebuilt his cottage with courage and help, only accessible by water (pontoons etc) , like a paradise now again...even in -30 in winter.
after these adventures, we decided it would be good to experience other lightning adventures ...
There is a good reason why the tampa bay hockey team is called the lightning... if you like to drive a convertible car ... go see a hockey game during a lightning storm , safer even if you are the goal tender ... lol
I am considering adding a large dodger bimini on my 26X, i am thinking about adding a mesh but weight is a bugger, now my slip neighbour has a higher mast and he added his radio antenna on top , so he is about 8 feet taller than me. I removed all "fancy" electronics , unplugged microwave and TV/video and AC. Ac in the house now.
I got strucked by the fake eagle flying into my backstay, twice ... windy place. I told the dock master to build a taller mast for the poor eagle kite.
Makes a nice sound too. The gas (regular WITH ethanol ...) is 200 feet from me , so that should be safe and make me buy 94with no ethanol else where a half hour away .
A neighbour electrician is worried about my mast not being grounded ... "your boat will sink" he said, nope, a mac stays afloat even with a hole in the hull. Especially with all the swimming noodles under the aft birth. I was surprised to see not to many mildew spots on them. Now on special liquidation end of season. I guess Tilex did the job preventing mildew. Bleach keeps my ballast clean.
An idea , a friend of mine added copper in his pool water and it worked with no chlorine ... would copper be a solution for lightning ballast dissipator ?
food for thoughts.
Mike
The long and the short of it is that nothing has been proven to work on a boat against lightning. Each bolt of lightning contains up to 1,000,000,000 volts of electricity. That’s one BILLION
I believe years ago I would see Cape Dory’s at boat shows; their advertising let people know that they had a copper line running down the boat so as to act as a ground against lightning. Never proven to work.
