RTT and lightning

[The Swiss]

We were caught in a nice 'lil thunderstorm last weekend and my wife asked the question, how safe roof top tents in general, my Maggiolina in particular, are when lightning should strike them. Irresponsible me who does not mind putting the life of my wife and the kids on the line (o tone of my wife ) never thought about it. Anybody has any ideas?

 

[RHINO]

everybody knows you should get as low as possible, i suggest you pitch a ground tent in a creek bed next time:sombrero:
seriously i dont know, but it cant be much different than a regular tent with aluminum poles grounded buy aluminum stakes.

 

[rjcj-8]

Hey where were you at Swiss? My son and I were over at Rocky Mountain Saturday night.

 

[UK4X4]

The wet tree beside you has a better earth than a roof tent,

lightening like electricity takes the shortest route to earth

you truck has tires- insulation

Unless your touching the RTT frame, leaning out the door and pidling on the ground, your pretty safe.

You will however probly suffer from a large bang and freezy hair

standiing on the ground with bare feet soaking wet and touching the RTT frame............sorry your toast:victory:

 

[lowenbrau]

The wet tree beside you has a better earth than a roof tent,

lightening like electricity takes the shortest route to earth

you truck has tires- insulation

Unless your touching the RTT frame, leaning out the door and pidling on the ground, your pretty safe.

You will however probly suffer from a large bang and freezy hair

standiing on the ground with bare feet soaking wet and touching the RTT frame............sorry your toast:victory:

For what it's worth, lightning takes *every* path to ground. The paths with the least resistance will get the most current but even the dry air will get a small fraction of current. In my business (wireless telecom) we see the occasional lightning struck site (highrise or tower) and it's frustrating to see a carbon track down painted drywall within one meter of a 2/0 bare copper conductor.

As far as the RTT goes, I figure you stand a far greater chance of having a tree fall on you than being killed by lightning.

We just had a crazy stormy long weekend around here...

photo by Graeme Watkinson
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Hail+wind+damage+leave+mess+clean/1856806/story.html

 

[The Swiss]

Hey where were you at Swiss? My son and I were over at Rocky Mountain Saturday night.

We were rafting at Natahala, NC. What ever happened to our plan to meet for a beer?

 

[rjcj-8]

Yeah the thing with lighting is it does not have to be a direct hit to have an effect, Lightning buzzes Gwinnett girl

I'd be just as worried about an indirect hit as a direct one, it does not take very much current to cause you to have a bad day.

As far as the RTT goes, I figure you stand a far greater chance of having a tree fall on you than being killed by lightning.

That's an interesting statement. We were camping in Memphis back during the first of June and they had some really sever storms pass through a couple of days before we got there. While there another strong storm passed through and caused a large tree to fall across the camp site next to us, we had originally picked that one but decided on the other one.

Yeah we need to meet up some time. Would like to check out the rubi, is it the 4 door? I've seen one around town a couple of time.

 

[The Swiss]

Yeah we need to meet up some time. Would like to check out the rubi, is it the 4 door? I've seen one around town a couple of time.

There are a couple 4 door Rubis in Rome; a red one with a nice lift, one in blue, one in black and an other white one with a Lady Jeeper; cross her almost every morning on Riverside Pkwy. Mine is I believe the only white 4 door Rubi with a Congo Cage and a Maggiolina RTT in Rome :elkgrin: