Lightning update: insurance

By Nicole

I remember watching the lightning storms roll through El Salvador. We would sit on Bella Star or Panache with our heads tilted upwards, transfixed by the bolts as they struck the hills surrounding the estuary. The power of the lightning was undeniable, but still we sat, oohing and ahhing like kids watching a 4th of July fireworks display. “Ohmygosh, look at that!” We’d yell to each other over cracks of thunder. “Dude! That hit the tower! Did you see that?” We couldn’t get enough of the nightly entertainment.

What they say about ignorance being bliss? It’s all true.

Fast-forward to Playas del Coco in Costa Rica. We’re ashore, enjoying our first Costa Rican beers—frosty Imperials—and watching the intense lightning storm that rolled in just seconds after we landed our dinghy on the beach. The rain was Biblical. The thunder was deafening. And the lightning was striking all around the restaurant. Awesome!! Or not.

You know the rest of the story. About how we dinked around town after the rain let up, not in any real hurry to get back to our boats. About how we had a hard time finding our boat in the dark anchorage because the anchor light wasn’t on (even though I knew I’d turned it on before we left). About how we climbed from the dinghy to the boat and knew something wasn’t right—the CO₂ detector was chirping madly and the electrical panel was dark. And about how we hurriedly flipped on breakers and tested electronics with a sick, sinking feeling in our stomachs. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Struck by lightning.

Early the next morning, under vibrant blue skies (and with puffy, I-spent-a-good-portion-of-last-night-crying eyes) we went into town to call our insurance company. I had to call our car insurance company a few years back after someone crashed into our parked car on Halloween (long story; don’t ask), and while it wasn’t a terrible experience, it wasn’t super awesome either. So I was pleasantly surprised when I called Pantaenius Yacht Insurance and got a real person—one who could actually help me—straightaway. I got set up with a claims adjustor on the spot, and after talking with her for only a few seconds, I knew that everything was going to (eventually) be okay. She gave me all the details about the process, reassured me when my voice cracked and allowed me to take a deep breath for the first time since stepping aboard the night before.

Aaron limped Bella Star the seven miles from the anchorage at Playas del Coco to Marina Papagayo, where Pantaenius said we could keep the boat—at their expense—until this was all sorted out. Without working nav lights, a VHF or a way to charge our batteries, we were unfit to remain at anchor or to get underway. Almost before we knew it (just two days later), they flew a surveyor down from Florida to take stock of the situation. He spent the entire day performing a full survey on the boat and made a detailed assessment of what was damaged, what might be repaired and what needed to be replaced.

After the survey, the claims adjustor worked with the surveyor to verify the list of damaged gear and advanced us money to start purchasing replacements. Bing-bang-boom. Well, the approval process did take a little more time than we were expecting, but the extra time allowed us to go off exploring Monteverde, so all wasn’t lost. Once the bulk of our gear was delivered, we submitted our receipts, and the rest of the money was wired to our account. Just. Like. That.

So would we recommend Pantaenius? Yes. Definitely, yes. In our experience, they have excellent customer service, they handled our claim professionally yet compassionately and they got us sailing again. What more could we want? Well, I guess we’d want competitive rates and a generous cruising area. We got that, too.

They also include this cool sticker with your official paperwork:

Thanks, Pantaenius!

Got more questions about our insurance experience? Just ask.

Lightning update: Christmas in July!

Ho! Ho! Ho!  Santa arrived this morning (in a flatbed golf cart) and delivered our first shipment of replacement gear.  Woohoooo!  This feels like PROGRESS! 

We used a freight shipper based in Miami to handle the logistics.  They received all our assorted packages, bundled them up, shipped them to Costa Rica, got them through customs and drove them to the marina (a 5-hour drive).  How long did all this take, you ask?  Well, the shipment left Miami Tuesday night and was on our front doorstep this morning at 7:45 a.m.  It’s Thursday.  Holy geez, that’s fast!

Digging in

Just like Christmas morning – minus the tree and tinsel.  And snow. 

The first project – the top priority item that trumped all others – has already been checked off the list.  Yep, the new stereo is installed and cranking out the tunes.  Now the real work begins… :)

Lightning Update

By Aaron

First of all, thanks for all the heartfelt thoughts and words of support.  Everyone, even people we’ve never even personally met, have all been so gracious and kind with their encouragement and offers to help.  It gives us the strength to pick ourselves up and sail on.

The night of the strike we quickly went through basic emergency damage control and assessment.

Is the fridge still keeping the beer cold?  Yes.

Is anything on fire?  No.                                                       

Is any water coming into the boat?  No.

Does the engine still start?  Yes.

After that it was trying out each individual piece of equipment that has an on/off switch and coming to the conclusion that we had a lot of work ahead of us. At least the new fridge I just installed a month ago was still working, and most of the lights, and the water pump, and the head pump, so our life support systems were in pretty good shape.

The morning after the strike we could visually see some of the damage.

Looking up we noticed that our VHF antenna was missing and presumably vaporized.  Both of the spreader lights were blackened.

We found one of the glass spreader light lenses intact on the deck, the other one shattered into little bits.

Going aloft to get a better look at everything, it was apparent that the maximum allowable voltage on our LED spreader lights may have been exceeded.

The masthead actually looked pretty good.  There was only a little blackening around the mount for the missing VHF antenna, it wasn’t even worth taking a picture of.  I removed the spreader lights, VHF mount, steaming light, anchor light, and anemometer in preparation for replacement. 

What’s left of the VHF antenna mount.  You can see some burn marks on the inside.  Maybe God was trying to hail us. 

We went ashore and with our fingers crossed made the call to our insurance company, Pantaenius.  Almost immediately we had arrangements to have a surveyor fly down from Florida to survey the boat.  And a nice thing about our policy is that the deductible for lightning strikes is zero. 

Our solar panels appeared to be working but alternator and generator charging were inoperative.  The panels alone aren’t quite enough to keep up with our electrical demands, we no longer had a working VHF or legal lights for being at anchor, so we knew we’d need to head to a marina for the time being (and it would also make it easier to meet the surveyor).  Fortunately, swanky Marina Papagayo was only about 7 miles away. 

Nicole already had a trip planned to go visit friends in Washington DC, and after considering staying with the boat we decided that she should still go.  So she flew out, and that same morning I pulled up the anchor and got underway to the marina.

And wow, nothing makes you appreciate the modern conveniences like having to use a compass heading for your course and actually hand steer the boat for over an hour!  If the marina were much further I may have had to (gasp) use a paper chart.

The surveyor showed up later that morning and did a very thorough survey of the boat and her electrical systems.  That report was submitted to the insurance company, and my job was to get quotes for repair or replacement of the broken gear which I have since provided.  And that’s pretty much where we’re at right now, but we expect to be ready to start ordering stuff shortly.  I’ll do the work myself.  Most of this stuff I installed the first time around, so I can do it again faster than a yard could, and probably to a higher level of quality.

It took me a few days to pull out some of the fried gear.  Still need to pull the battery monitor, engine hour meter, fuel gauge sender, alternator regulator, radar dome, GPS receiver, transducer, etc.  And probably all the NMEA2K cabling.  The lightning also fried one of my laptops.  You may notice the empty rum bottle as well.  While not directly affected by the lightning strike, it also gets a spot on the table as something that needs to be fixed.

So I’m curious as to where 1.21 gigawatts of electricity decided to exit the boat.  (Or maybe it’s squished up into a ball, hiding in the bilge.)  Yesterday I pulled out all the anchor chain to investigate the chain locker but everything looked good.  Today I swam the hull and looked at every metal surface, seacock and thruhull trying to see any indication of where the strike exited the boat.  I looked all over the hull underwater and at the water line for signs of pinholes, crazing, or burn marks.  What I can see of the chainplates looks good.  So I didn’t see anything unusual, but we’ll be hauling out anyway at the first opportunity to get a better look.  We’ll also need to pull the mast to rewire it. 

So yeah, this sucks.  But they say cruising is fixing your boat in exotic places.  And this place sure qualifies as exotic.  It’s absolutely, and stunningly beautiful here.  We’ve already fallen in love with Costa Rica and we’ve still got 90% of the coast to explore.  We’ll have a post up soon about our wonderful stay in Bahia Elena.  And yesterday we killed some time by renting a car and taking a trip to one of the many national parks, Rincon de la Vieja.  We took a 4km hike amongst all sorts of steaming and bubbling volcanic treats - and it was truly amazing.  So we’ll have some posts up on that soon as well, as well as updates to our ongoing repairs. 

Bella Star will sail on!

Struck by lightning

By Nicole

It was a dark and stormy night… Isn’t that how good horror stories start?  Well, that basically sets the scene for what happened a few nights ago.

While at anchor in Playas del Coco, Costa Rica, Bella Star took a direct lightning strike.

We were ashore enjoying our first taste of Costa Rican beer when a severe thunderstorm moved in bringing torrential rain, intense flashes of lightning and deafening cracks of thunder.  As cruisers, we live with the reality of a potential lightning strike, but it’s something we never really thought would happen to us.

No one was hurt—that’s the main thing—but Bella Star sustained major damage and is out of commission for the time being.  Virtually all the electronics were fried, including the VHF, SSB, Pactor modem, autopilot, chartplotter, alternator/regulator, inverter, battery charger/monitor … and the list goes on.

The last few days have been stressful and trying—I’ve cried more than once—but we’re working with the insurance company to come up with a plan.  We want nothing more than to get Bella Star out cruising again, and that’s what we’re going to do.

We’ll keep you posted…