WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Off the Trails: Struck by Lightning

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Join Nicole Sighiartau and Storm Drexler as they discuss some of their wildest experiences in the great outdoors! This week they are joined by Mary-Hannah and Margaret Runge who share their summer project of building a boat back home in Georgia with their friend group.

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome to Off the Trails. Say hey, it's me, Storm Drexler. And I'm Nicole Segueratau, and we'll be your adventure buddies every week as we discuss some of our wildest stories from our outdoor endeavors. This week, we have two very special guests on the podcast, Mary Hannah and Margaret. They are sisters, and they are Storm's friends from back home. Never met him before.

And they're going to tell me. us a little bit about a boating adventure that they had over the summer, but it's more than just boating. There was some building involved. So if you guys want to say hi and just introduce yourselves briefly. Who are you? I'm oldest, so I'll go first. It is my birth rate. That's true. I'm Mary Hannah. My duty in the boat building project was mostly painting. I'm sure we'll get into that. Margaret. Okay, so I was the social media manager or co-social media manager with Grace Brennan. Shout out.

Yeah, so we ran an Instagram account together just following the boat build. And then, yeah, then I would just like help with things. Did a lot of sanding. And today we're going to reveal some never before heard details and secrets behind the boat build. You can go look at it on Instagram, but you should definitely listen to us talk about it because it was pretty. cool. For those who don't know, just give a little bit of an intro, over the summer, Margaret, Mary Hannah, and I and some of our friends back home decided to build a boat. And yes, that is what it sounds like. We decided to do this because our friend, one of our other friends, his family has a

house on a lake in North Georgia. I think it's in North Carolina, actually. And we were like, we're going to give him a boat for his birthday. What was the initial, whose idea was it? So the initial idea, I think, was between Carter and Tad. Carter is one of our other friends who worked on the boat. And it was officially pitched to the group on the glorious PowerPoint night, one of our activity nights over the summer, where I think Storm you, your PowerPoint was about what we should eat that night. Yeah.

But we had already eaten. But we had already had dinner, so it was not very relevant. But the, okay, we say it's, it is for McGuire. McGuire, if you're listening, it was for you. But it was also kind of just like an excuse to build a boat. Yes. Carter and Todd really wanted to build a boat. Yes.

They're like, yeah, no, it's for McGuire's birthday. Guys, I've got to do it. It was pitched by Tad for his PowerPoint the Thursday before the Friday we left to the lake. Yeah. So just a week before we had to leave, Tad was like. like, hey, we should build a boat. Yeah. And we as a...

There were naysayers. There were doubts. I was a naysayer. I was definitely nayser. Because we as a friend group are not the best at consistently getting stuff done, I think is fair to say. They speak for yourself, sister. Well, as a group together, we've never built a boat before. We've never done a long-term project before.

But Tad defeated us naysayers, me included, and bought the motor that. night on Amazon. Oh my gosh. It was like we all vimode him or literally just like gave him cash that night after the, and yeah. And then he literally just went on Amazon and got this random motor from some Chinese company. It was, he told me that it's actually just a lawnmower motor that. Wait, what? Yes, it's the lawnmower motor. Yes, but it's like modified to which is ironic because Tad owns a lawn care business. Yes. It's his element. He knew. It's all just a scheme to get him like a really nice, like, lawn care motor with all of our money.

He snuck at home with him and was like, this is mine now. Yeah. And we only had a week. We like planned for a few days, but really there were only three days of building. I thought it was longer than that. But when I talked to Tad yesterday, it really only was. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Yes.

And then the initial build, I believe, was just based off of like some random Reddit posts that Tad had found. Yes. Like, and on the Instagram, you can see the Reddit post. Like, I use it. But it's literally just, I mean, it's insane that he came up with like a whole, like, system for building it and all the measurements. And he had it like down to a T and he had like a whole list of things we needed to buy at Home Depot. I mean.

Which was the majority of the first day. Which I wasn't there for. So what was the first day like? Okay. I think we all met up at Tad's house. And then we from there went up to home. Yeah, it was Home Depot. I don't think...

No, we went to the barrel place first. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which was such a long drive. And we bought... I think it might be important to describe what the boat looks like a little bit. Yeah. Which is, the idea was it's a picnic table that floats. So it's a picnic table on this deck platform thing.

There's no deck underneath the picnic table so you can dangle your legs in the water. And then it's held afloat by six barrels that the boat kind of sits on top. of that are secured underneath by ratchet straps and the structure. It looks like a pontoon boat kind of. Yes, yes. And then the motor is just slapped on the back. But yeah, we went to get the barrels and then we headed to Home Depot, got all the wood, almost all the supplies. We were still waiting for the motor though, and the motor was supposed to come Friday, which is the day we were leaving.

So that was not good. Yeah. Thankfully, it came Thursday evening, which, we were still. Thursday evening, which was a big surprise. It made us look way more prepared than we actually won't. Yeah, no. There was a chance that we would just not, they would just not be there in time. And sorry, how many of you were working on this project?

Just to like get an idea. It changed over the course of the three days. So initially it was you, me, Tad, Liam Brennan, and Grace Brennan, who are a shout out to them. Other Hillsdale College campus students. well-known names around the block. Yes. Um, Carter.

McGuire was one in the first day. I think it was like nine of us. Yes. Overall. I wasn't there for the first half though. Right. Um, and then second day,

you came and Tad's neighbor came out to help us. The other Liam. Oh yeah, that guy was there. He was awesome. He was a legend. Yes. Super helpful. Yeah.

You can, Margaret made and Grace made some Instagram reels, I think. you guys like real? Everyone likes real. Everyone likes reals. So go to the boat build page. If you follow any of us, then you probably can go and find

the boat build page. It's really cool. I watched the reels and I was like, wow, this looks pro done. It was super cool music. They were very fun to watch. Yes. That's so great.

And if you're having trouble spatially picturing what Mary Hanna is talking about with what the boat actually is, then definitely go look at the picture, all the pictures we put on Instagram because it was cool. And like, what are the dimensions approximately how long and how wide are we talking so tad when i called them yesterday gave me the dimensions

and i think it was let's see it was like 12 you brought nifty so nifty notes except i'm a terrible note taker so i don't know where things okay so it can fit 12 people wow i was kind of claustrophobic on the boat we did so i think 11 but it can fit and it will float and the motor will work with 12 people on it. It goes about two miles an hour. Yeah. We learned that quick because we brought it up to the lake on Tad's ginormous lawnmower trailer that he has.

And he kind of backed it down at the marina broke several marina code violations. We had to have several violations at the marina code. No one. Apparently you weren't supposed to be in the water near all the other boats or something. It was really funny. Near the boats, there's like, electrical stuff.

So you're not supposed to be in the water. You're also like, I don't, I don't know the rules for like backing it down. There's so many reasons. You're just like not supposed to. I mean, we did so very dirty right there too. Like the water was gross. And then we left Tad's truck and like trailer there overnight. And they like that morning they were like, ah, he's not supposed to be here.

But for us, it was a moment of triumph because we lifted it in the water. We floated. We cheered. We smashed the honorary beer against the side of it. Put on, I think that's when we put on the sign. Yes. Yes. Which the name of the boat.

The Plank Sinatra. Wait, we should say it all three. Okay, ready, one, two, three. Plank Sinatra. It was awesome. Carter's idea. Carter came up with that, right? I think so.

Credit to him. Man the myth, the legend. I found the dimensions of the boat. It is 10 feet long and just under seven feet wide. And the barrels give 400 plus pounds of buoyancy, according to Tad, which... We needed all 400 plus, but we relied heavily on that. That plus. Wait, 400 plus.

Would it be more than that? It would be, it could be more than that. Is that one barrel? That's like low balling it. No, that's all six barrels. I think we all weighed more. Yeah, we've made more than 400 pounds. If there were 11.

Maybe it is per barrel. Maybe I got it wrong because I actually. Why not that? I just probably that would. They could carry up to five people. Wait a minute. It was a miracle the whole time. We were floating and shouldn't have been.

scientifically it's right 400 plus but like plus plus plus yeah but it worked and we and we were all on the thing and we started the motor we're like yeah and then it took us like an hour and a half to get back to it got dark it got so dark so from the arena back to maguire's lakehouse because we had to get the boat back to maguire's lake house that's where we like docked it and everything and like as we're going there's like we just see like in the horizon there's like a storm coming in but we're going two miles an hour Where else can you talk about this stuff other than... You're listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. And let's hear about this impinging storm.

Impinging? Impinging? They do call me the impinging storm occasionally. So we all shouted from the most impinging on us from above. Dark clouds were gathering. There was distant rumbles as we frightfully punted at three miles an hour. The whole time we were at the lake, it was storming every evening. So we should have seen it coming.

But anyway, Margaret, Margaret's story from this whole incident is the craziest. So, yeah, so, you know, we're trying to beat the storm, but we're literally going like two miles an hour. And, you know, then it's like, the motor is so small that we have to like stop and refuel. Like, no, no, no, this is important. Tad told me to clarify this. It did not need refueling. We did check it. It didn't need refueling into the last 300 yards to the dock.

Wow. It was fine until then. And how far out on the lake were you at this point when you were in you, you were in saw the storm. Like how far away from the dock? Oh, like middle of the lake. Like middle of the lake, like half a mile. What are we talking? Oh yeah. It was like a three mile. Lake Piawassey is like very sprawling and so it's like a lot of channels. Like there's not really a giant wide open lake anywhere. It's like it's like spreads through the mountains. But I believe from the marina to McGuire's house it was like three miles. It was about two and a half. Okay. Maybe more. Yeah.

So the maiden voyage was pretty impressive. Yeah. And it took us like, it took us like 30 minutes to get So, no, way more that two miles an hour for two and a half miles. Yeah, it took a whole time. But then we got close to the dock. And that is when the storm was beginning to break. And it would, the storms that weekend were not like, oh, you know, it rains hard for a little while. It was full on lightning and thunder. And there was a lot of argument on the way back about whether we were safe or not.

Storm and I argued, I was insisting that the lightning was coming for us and you were insisting it was... We were going to be fine. But Storm would know, right? Hereticly, yeah. You would have been fine, guaranteed. I would probably be. No, if anyone's in danger, it's me as the tallest person on that boat. That is true.

You would have taken it. You would stand up on the boat and sacrifice yourself. Yeah, as a lightning rod and channeled all into the wood and hopefully it would insulated. That'd be insane. Yeah. And to clarify, I don't know if we mentioned this earlier, but you guys are from Georgia. up. So this is in North Carolina though.

We're at Lake Hiawassey. It's in Southern North Carolina. Very cool lake. Mostly, I was going to say unsettled. That's kind of weird to say. Mostly there were not a lot of houses on like Hiawassey. So it's very beautiful. You can go a little bit away from where there's like the cove that people have

lake houses on. And very quickly, it looks like you're just in the middle of the wilderness. It's so beautiful. In this Appalachian Mountain Lake. And it's gorgeous. We are so blessed. The McGuire has us up there.

Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah. Okay, but. But anyway, Mark got struck by lightning. Whoa. Okay.

Well, that is up for debate. Only a mild exaggeration. A mild case of the lightning. So we're, this is the name of the episode. A mild case of the lightning. Yes. We're rolling,

we're like coming in and like the storm is like so, I mean, we can see, so we're like coming into kind of the cove that like McGuire's house is situated in. And we need to dock the boat and we're coming in and like the storm. and like the storm has like just fully broken upon us and like it is thunder and lightning and like

it's not great to be on a boat that you built when there's thunder and lightning and literally your legs in the water yes it's also just not good to be out on the water and a storm at any point in time like I used to race sailing and as soon as a storm was coming up there like you need to go in because if something's going to get struck out on the water it's your boat yeah yes you are the most at risk well no we are we were pretty low to the water just a little picnic table i think we would have been fine okay well i was mostly worried that we'd lose the beer cooler and the rush to go back onto the shore yeah yeah but as we were coming up to the dock some of the guys so this entire so okay so we're coming up to the dock and like we're all on the boat and then like there's like a like a lightning strikes

and we're all like, okay, we all start freaking out. And it's like we have, we need to make a plan and we need to make it fast. And the plan that was made was, all the girls jump in the water and swim to shore, get the women to safety. So basically what they did was they threw all the women off the boat and just put them in the water. And then we had to swim. And how far away from shore are you at this place? Oh, we're close. It did not feel close.

30 feet in the water. It's like 30 feet from the dark thing. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So we're swimming. We're swimming. Dark.

It's dark. It's dark. Everyone's go life jackets. And you're just thinking like, I really hope I don't get struck by lightning right now. Single file up the little ladder. What are you all even doing at that point? We were spinning out of control. We discovered in that moment because actually a couple of the guys jumped off too.

I think it was just Tad nine like two of the people on the boat. We discovered that believe it or not, The boat goes faster when there's only four people on it. Oh, so much faster. And we started to zoom. Yeah, we were like, whoa. And we whipped it around. And before you guys, almost before you guys were able to even like get up and off the dock,

we had parked the boat, docked the road on the side and started like lashing the ropes around the things. Yeah, we had to climb one by one up the ladder. The rest of us were. Okay. And Tad just whipped it and we just were right there in a matter of seconds. Well, okay. So, and then this whole time. just um hines mcguire's little brother is following us and they're like legit pontoon boat because

like we don't even know this is the first time this thing is like gone in the water like we and we we just ordered this lawnmower motor off the amazon yeah we screwed in these screws a day ago we're like yeah yeah and so and and then we decided to slap like 12 people on this picnic table so you know it was just good to have someone following us but anyways we have to So we docked the little boat and then we have to dock the pontoon boat. And so I climb up onto the dock thing and like everyone, all the girls are like, you know, on. I ran up to the house. And then.

And hit under the blanket. Self preservation. Got out of there. We took refuge. And then, you know, the big pontoon boat, like legit boat is pulling in. And this is really stupid. But I, so I'm holding onto the railing of the, the, the, dock and then I grab the

railing of the boat because you have to make sure it's not hitting the sides of the dock as it comes in. What's the railing of the boat made of Margaret? It's made of metal. And so is the like dock thing. So all of the sudden my life flashes before my eyes and it's like white and I just feel the shock through my phone. As well as around 14 million

electrons flashing over your eyelids. Yes. And I have been I have been a conductor. You got struck by lightning. I have been a conductor for That counts. My gosh. Yeah. And, you know, I felt alive in that moment.

I now know. We've been noticing strange superpowers. She's never been quite the same since. Yeah. So it was, you know, I guess that's like a thing that happened to me now. So, okay. So did the lightning strike the dock and then like go through you? Because I think if you were directly struck by lightning.

Oh, yeah. She definitely wasn't directly. She became the conductor. I was going to finish the circuit. I'm basically Zeus. Like if you want a definition. Yeah. I don't know what it struck.

I don't know if it was like the water. Probably the water at a distance from like because we didn't see it. So it was pretty cute. Like you can't see me right now. I'm pretty huge. I'm like eight feet tall and like 400 pounds. But even I don't think I could take a direct hit. Yeah.

You almost did. Wow. You almost did. It makes me feel cool. We believe in you. That is wild. I don't even know what to say. I wasn't expecting this.

You weren't either. Parker was not expecting it. No, I do have another question. So if there was a pontoon boat following you guys and you saw the storm was coming and you kind of had the inclination that maybe if we get more people off the boat, the boat will go faster, why didn't you send some people on? I think it was a matter of pride in terms of like we all. all wanted to be on the boat for the whole time.

Yeah, who's going to get off the main voyage? That wasn't even the initial plan. The initial plan, according to Tad, was not that everyone would be on the boat for the maiden voyage, but everyone who'd worked so hard on it really, really wanted to be. Yeah. And we were so close to the dock by the time the storm had actually broken. I see. So at that point, it would have made no difference to either swim to the boat or swim to the dock.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could there, were there like a hundred better ways that we could have done? Absolutely. But we chose The cool way. The cool way. Two miles an hour. Cross the lake.

I mean, your boat held up to Mother Nature is what I'm hearing. It saved you guys. Take that Mother Nature. Yeah. Plank Sinatra. Man wins again. Ingenuity. Knock on wood.

So if you guys have the opportunity to do this again, would you build a new and improved Frank Sinatra? Plank Sinatra too. Well, it's already, it's still there. So we left the boat up there. It survived the night, survived the storm. It's now last thought. We took it out a few more times.

Went and explored some other places. It's in great shape. We put an umbrella on top of it. Wow. Improvement. Like a real picnic table so that you can be shaded well out there and have your cooler and have your motor going and everything's great. So it's still up there for when we go back up next year, hopefully next summer.

But I do want to, I do want to, okay, so we do have some more plans for Plank Sinatra. we want to paint it and have it like an American flag pattern. Stain it too. Oh, I love the picnic table would be American flag pattern. The benches will be stained. So hopefully the last, like, cup holders. You know, some pretty, some pouters, yeah. Some muds, some pretty great ones.

A bidet. Natural lake filtration. Anyway, it was so fun to have you guys on the podcast and just so interesting to hear all about this. And I mean, if you haven't watched their little Instagram Reels series, you should definitely go check it out. You want to shout out the Instagram account. Gate guy followed us.

That's what I heard. Gate guy did follow us. Such an honor. I think it's literally just the boat build. Yeah. And if you follow any of us, you can find it through that.

And then we're probably going to be ramping it up for round two of improvements. Building a plane. Building a plane is the rumor right here. Oh my gosh. Something to go on train tracks. Yeah.

The right sister's. Oh, that sounds so fun. Yes. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on the show this week. It's been such a pleasure to have you and to talk and listen to your wonderful story. Thank you for listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. We hope you have a great week and make time to go outside and enjoy the great outdoors. We'll see you out there. Happy trails.

I'm paddling to safety. Bye, guys. Bye. Thank you.