We set off yesterday from Fort Lauderdale aboard a beautiful Hylas 54 with a destination of Bluewater Marina in Hampton, VA. If you have been following along, you might know that is right where Harmonie is docked waiting patiently for us.

We arrived here a few days before, and had the usual boat inspection, and last minute preparations. The weather looked good, if anything less wind than we might have liked.

We got out of Port Everglades at about 10AM, and turned north. The afternoon sea breeze filled in, and we shut down the motor, and spread sail. We were soon making 10 to 11 knots over ground with the help of the Gulf Stream pushing us along. Sunny, clear, not too hot, not too cold. A perfect sailing day.

But this IS Florida in July, and it is expected that right along coast there is always the chance for pop-up thunderstorms in the afternoon even on days (like this one!) where they are not in the forecast.

Sure enough, as we approached Palm Beach the first of them appeared behind us. Not terribly large, or violent. We dealt with a couple wind shifts, and some moderate rain. The crew was enjoying counting the seconds between lightening flashes and thunder to track the approach of the storm. Right up to the point there were NO seconds between the flash and the thunder.

I was sitting in the cockpit, and felt the pick of an electric shock on my hand as electricity jumped from the metal of the dodger to somewhere else. All our instruments went haywire, and out of the corner of my eye I saw debris falling into the water from the top of the mast. We had been hit by lightning.

A quick inventory of the damage and we realized that continuing the voyage was not practical, so we headed back to Fort Lauderdale to do a more complete survey, and get repairs started. Everybody on board worked together calmly and smoothly to get things back to a point we could navigate again.

This was the first time I have been on a boat that experienced a direct strike. I was actually surprised—a little. I would have predicted something more violent. But the damage to systems was widespread, and widely random. So far, here are the wounds we know about:

• Electric genoa furler, not functioning.
• Bow thruster, works only in one direction.
• One (of the two) chart plotters dead.
• Instrument network offline.
• Autopilot not working.
• Inverter not functioning.
• Dishwasher not functioning.
• Generator does not start.
• VHF antenna on the mast head: Gone.
• Tricolor and Anchor lights on the mast head: Gone.

At this point the actual causes of failures haven’t been diagnosed, some might be simple, some complex, and there might be more to find. The owners have already gotten the various threads with the local vendors started to get repairs underway.

So Karen and I will be back on an airplane this afternoon to Virginia while all the king’s horses and all the king’s men work to put this boat back to condition to move offshore again.