Tell me more about grounding plates – we don’t see lightning in the pacific NW. In fact, the risk of a lightning strike is so low that the Commander is the first boat I've ever seen with every hunk of above-water metal wired back to the battery's ground. And that's where it ends too: someone yanked the inboard (and all the extraneous hardware) long ago, so the grounding wires all end at the battery. Also, we replaced the bronze seacocks and thru-hulls with plastic, so we’re not grounded through that path. My question: If I don’t want to screw with copper plates on the bottom of the hull, what danger is posed leaving the battery connected to the ground terminal? It seems if I’m sleeping on a boat that's struck by lightning, an exploding battery might be the least of my problems. Any thoughts?