I've always heard/read that in order for a car to protect you, it needs to be a hardtop with the windows up (no convertibles). That should answer the boat thing in itself. Of course, the boat is an object higher than the water and you're probably in the open so that in itself makes you a potential target. Also, if the car you are in is hit by lightning, do not exit for about 30 minutes; the car acts like a capacitor and can hold a charge; you exit too soon and you complete the circuit .

As for the tires thing, here is a good link to look at: http://lightningstorm.com/tux/jsp/faq/index.jsp. I won't cut/paste as they require permission for that (see the legal notice). Lots of interesting stuff on that website.

The last time I had a close encounter with lightning was when I was out using a weedwacker in my yard. With a storm approaching, I was in a hurry to finish my work. While standing in the yard with the weedwacker running, a shock went through my arm, a shock so intense that I involuntarily dropped the weedwacker. I had no control over it whatsoever. My neighbor thought it was pretty funny; I hit the ground as fast as I could.

 

Yeah, he had a huge rig on top of the building (most homes there had flat roofs, sort of like commercial buildings here). Was building it higher and setting a new anchor when it started going down. He was, admittedly foolish, and thought he could stop its downward progress! Should have just let it go!

My mom was inside, heard a huge BAM!! followed by the lights going out. She told me the first thing she thought was "what's Rob done this time?" Went up there and found him passed out.

 

Cowboy, thank you. It's just the information I was wondering about. I do have a funny feeling about being on open water during an electrical storm. That sort of spells it out, LEAVE NOW!!!

 

If you are on water in an alum. boat or the water gets hit by lightning you my friend are in big trouble. Chances are you will die, you need to find safe haven asap. We were playing horseshoes one time as a storm approched and i went to toss another shoe and when i held it up it began to ring,hum whatever. We then ran like hell into the house.. scary stuff man.

 

Tires are not insulators. I discovered this many years ago when I was working on an alarm system. I think it is the carbon black that makes them conduct. Do not stand under a tree during a storm. The tree acts like an inductor. The tree gets hit and a voltage builds up, it then jumps to you. An 11 guage wire will handle most strikes. A tower will give a zone of protection to surrounding objects.

 

Back in 1984 lightning struck my house. It actually struck a tree outside and was conducted into the house by an electric line connected to a bug zapper hanging in the tree. The lightning destroyed every electrical and electronic device in the house. The extension cord that connected to the bug zapper was blown apart. The bug zapper itself was gone and there was about an 18" dia 6" deep crater in the lawn. The circuit that the bug zapper was plugged into was vaporized all the way back to the main breaker box on the other end of the house. Another 220V circuit that was feeding a socket right near where the bug zapper was plugged in was also vaporized. By vaporized I mean the plastic wire insulation was still intact but with tiny burn markes all over the surface. The metal wires were GONE! The telephone wires were the same way all thru the house back to the pole. Plastic covering was intact, just no wires. It would have been interesting to have been in the living room next to the plug in where the bug zapper was but I don't think I would be telling about this. There were arc burns all over the outside of all of my stereo equipment, TV, phones, lamps, etc. A couple of holes were blown in the walls. There were also burns on a lot of equipment in the basement. When I did some HVAC modifications about a year later I found that all of the HVAC ducts were spot welded together at every joint with thousands of tiny welds. It was hell to get some of it apart. Objects in or near our yard were hit 4 more times that summer. Two more trees were hit and two light poles were hit. Both light pole hits did more damage to electrical equipment in my house. I haven't had a direct lightning strike since. I also have some HD spike filters on my incoming power lines that have saved my house a couple of transformer coupled "hits" that wiped out equipment in my neighbors house that is on the same transformer. Probably from lightning hitting a pole somewhere in the neighborhood.

The bug zapper did protect the tree by attracting the lightning away from the trunk, and it still gives great shade.

A frame house/building is not a safe place to be in a lightning storm. The house wiring will attract lightning but it is not continuous enuf like the body of a car to protect the occupants. I have heard the side flashes kill more people than direct strikes. Metal buildings and large buildings with steel skeletons and lots of rebar seem to be conductive enuf to protect the occupants.

I doubt that a pontoon boat is conductive enuf like a car to protect the occupants.

Some naval ship engineer could probably give better answers about watercraft.

 

I work up on mountaintops a lot with communication towers. The towers are nothing more than big lightning rods and they will take lots of strikes during a storm. Everything has to be grounded well. Even with all the grounding, lightning sometimes doesn't follow the path of least resistance. I've seen, (and had to fix..), the things Eric is talking about numerous times. It loves to get into electrical conduit and pull it off the wall. Rebar is lightning food, too.

I went to a site that had no grounding once. It had taken a major strike. At the top of the 160 foot tower I found the initial impact vaporized a fiberglass/aluminum antenna and ripped a 3x3x1/4 angle iron in half. I saw a re-enforced building where they had tied rebar horizontaly between some of the rows. The lightning followed straight down the wall, reached the 90 deg corner, blew out the corner, and continued to the next corner, blew it out and so on. They had 3/4" conduit running to an empty building 10 feet away. The lightning followed the conduit to the empty, ungrounded, breaker box. It blew the box 10 foot across the room and embedded it in the cinderblock wall. The phone service enclosure outside blew and was found an 1/8 mile away. Lightning welded the chain link fence to the posts. There were 4 or 5 other buildings up there and everyones meter popped out. Amazingly, none of the equipment was protected, yet it suffered no damage. The tech. had been working on the system and forgot to put the feedline back on.

I've been on sites working and seen the lightning storms coming. It usually rains really hard first, so everyone goes inside. It'll hit close, sometimes 20 feet away. I put my fingers in my ears and wait for the flash. When it comes it's bright, loud, your hairs stand up and you get a coppery ion taste in your mouth. The air never smells as fresh as it does after a strike..