On August 26, 1900, the steamer Numidie, sailing from Bone, was struck by lightning. The fluid fell on the mizzen-mast, and went down the standing jib, to which the second officer was clinging. The unfortunate man had had both his hands paralyzed and fallen; but if he had fallen on the outside of the draille, death would have been inevitable.
The Rodney was under weigh before Syracuse when it was struck. This was on December 7, 1838. The top-gallant-mast went first; it weighed eight hundred pounds, and such was the violence of the stroke that it was instantly reduced to shavings, which hung the whole length of the vessel, like rubbish in a carpenter's shop. The topmast was very much damaged and shattered here and there. As for the mainmast, with its ironwork weighing more than a ton, it was wrecked for a length of some seventeen metres.
At times the masts are split from top to bottom, broken or cut transversely in fragments, and flung to a distance. Sometimes they are planed, like the beams and trees of which we have already spoken.
The Blake was struck by lightning in 1812. The top-gallant-mast was in green pine, which was split into long fibres in every direction, like branches of a tree.
It is not unusual for lightning to creep into the heart of a mast and do it all kinds of injuries, without in any way hurting the outside; in a word, there may be single or double furrows, longitudinal or zigzag, sometimes curved, and of varying depth. Sometimes also, the electric current, far more powerful than the blast of the wind, seizes the rigging and carries it off. This phenomenon was observed on the Clenker, December 31, 1828; the topmast and sails were torn off and thrown into the water. Neither are the sails spared by the terrible meteor; they are torn, riddled with holes, or set on fire. But as a rule the yards are spared.
One of the most frightful effects of thunder on ships is fire, which it drives from one part of the vessel to another. Under ordinary circumstances it is usually local, and easily extinguished; but when it seizes on various parts of the ship at once, as when struck by lightning, then destruction becomes inevitable.
In 1793 the King George from Bombay was sailing up the river at Canton, when an electric spark, followed by a violent clap of thunder, grazed the mizzen-mast, and disappeared in the hold, after killing seven men. Seven hours later it was discovered with consternation that the hold, full of an inflammable cargo, was on fire. It spread rapidly over the whole ship, which it burned to the water's edge.
The ship Bayfield from Liverpool was struck by lightning November 25, 1845. Instantly the deck was seen covered with globes of fire and large sparks, which set fire to the vessel. As it threatened the powder-magazine, the captain decided to abandon the ship. A rush was made for the boats, but as only thirty pounds of bread could be saved, many perished of hunger and thirst.
Often, indeed, the explosion of the powder-magazine makes the catastrophe even more terrible. Thus, in 1798, the English vessel the Resistance, was blown up in the Straits of Malacca. Only two or three of the crew were saved.
But lightning plays more tricks with the compass than with anything else when it visits a ship. The vibrating, quivering, magnetic needle is often paralyzed by the electric current; sometimes its poles are reversed, or the points, disturbed by the passage of the spark, deviate, and no longer responding to the magnetic pole, mislead and move hither and thither.