Lightning [21 
LIGHTNING HITS SHIPS 
Maritime history is filled with tales of ships lost with all 
hands due to their being struck by lightning. In wooden ships 
lightning could splinter a mast all the way down to the step 
and then blast a hole through the bottom. Many years ago 
the ship West Point was struck seven times in as many min- 
utes, and as a result of these seven celestial broadsides lost 
part of her crew—a convincing proof that lightning can strike 
several times in the same place if it has a mind to. During a 
five-year period in the early nineteenth century, the British 
Royal Navy lost seventy ships to lightning bolts, a calamity 
joyfully credited to God by the French. Modern ships are 
protected against lightning, however, so the outcome of 
present day naval contests is less in the hands of God, more 
dependent upon armament—a kind of evolution from bolt to 
bomb. | 
Even in iron hull ships, a lightning stroke has some effect. 
For example, it can reverse the magnetism of a ship com- 
pletely and throw off the compasses drastically. After a ship 
has been struck by lightning, it is imperative to redetermine 
the deviation table (or curve), or perhaps even to have the 
compass recompensated. Compasses are compensated for 
deviation (error produced by the magnetic influence of steel 
and iron in a ship) by proper placing of various magnets both 
inside and outside of the binnacle. The actual procedure, 
which is a tricky and involved process requiring much study 
and experience, is usually handled by professional compen- 
sators. (The subject is too technical for discussion here, but 
a good reference, for those who are interested, is A Treatise 
- on Compass Compensation by L. V. Kielhorn, D. Van Nos- 
trand Company, New York, 1942. ) 
