A routine trip to inspect a fishing boat turned into a tense race back toward shore for five Florida men after static electricity began building across the vessel, producing visible blue arcs and a strange clicking sound while a fast-moving storm closed in offshore.
FOX 13 Tampa Bay reporter Evan Axelbank said the group was about 50 miles off the coast of Bradenton when the phenomenon, known as St. Elmo’s Fire, began appearing across metal parts of the boat. One man was shocked while touching a fishing rod, and within minutes the group decided they needed to leave immediately.
Scott Gilligan, of Wesley Chapel, told Axelbank he had never even heard of St. Elmo’s Fire before the trip, but after seeing it develop around the boat, he quickly realized the situation was far more serious than an unusual weather curiosity.
A Boat Inspection Turns Into Something Else
Gilligan had gone out with four friends to decide whether the boat was worth buying, and the group took it offshore early in the morning as part of what was supposed to be a normal test run.
Axelbank reported that they anchored roughly 50 miles offshore, with an approaching storm still more than 20 miles away, which made the group believe they had enough separation to remain safe.
For about half an hour, nothing seemed especially concerning.
Then one of the men reached for a fishing rod and suddenly received an electrical shock.
“One of my friends went to pick one of the rods up out of the rod holder and got shocked,” Gilligan said, recalling that his friend immediately reacted with, “What in the world?”
That moment was followed by something even stranger.
Gilligan said the group began hearing repeated clicking sounds coming from different parts of the boat, and when they started looking more closely, they noticed small blue arcs appearing between pieces of metal.
“Every little piece of metal on the boat just started ticking, ticking, ticking,” he told Axelbank.
He said the blue electrical glow could be seen around the rod holders and metal framing, making it clear that something unusual was happening throughout the vessel rather than at a single spot.
Storm Was Moving Faster Than They Expected
The group first moved closer to shore, but the storm they had been watching on radar was advancing quickly enough that creating more distance became increasingly difficult.
Gilligan said the men soon decided that simply repositioning the boat was not enough.
They turned toward land and accelerated to roughly 30 mph, trying to get away from the area before the conditions became even more dangerous.
“At that point in time, we were like, ‘This is way too dangerous,’” Gilligan said.
He told Axelbank that the group did not fully understand the significance of what they had seen until later, when he researched St. Elmo’s Fire and learned how closely it can be associated with the electrical conditions surrounding thunderstorms.
That made the decision to leave look even more sensible in hindsight.
Being several dozen miles offshore with exposed metal all around the boat is already a vulnerable position during a storm, and the appearance of electrical discharge gave the crew a clear reason not to wait and see what happened next.
What St. Elmo’s Fire Actually Is
Axelbank explained that St. Elmo’s Fire occurs when static electricity builds enough to create a difference in electrical charge between an object and the air around it.
That difference can produce visible plasma, often appearing as a blue or violet glow around pointed or conductive objects such as masts, antennas or, in this case, fishing equipment and metal framing.
The glow itself is generally considered harmless, but the conditions producing it can signal a highly charged atmosphere in which lightning is possible.
That distinction is important because St. Elmo’s Fire is visually dramatic, but the larger danger comes from what may follow rather than from the glow itself.
Gilligan said that was exactly what concerned the group once they realized how much electrical activity was building around them.
With a storm closing in and metal surfaces beginning to crackle and arc, they feared a lightning strike could occur at any moment.
‘We Have To Go’
Gilligan said there was not much debate once everyone understood how unusual the situation had become.
“We just took off,” he told FOX 13. “We were like, ‘All right. We gotta go.’”
He also stressed how difficult it can be to judge rapidly changing weather while offshore, even when boaters are watching radar carefully.
“You can’t predict it,” he said, noting that storms can change direction, intensity and speed faster than expected.
That uncertainty was central to what happened.
The group had deliberately anchored more than 20 miles away from the approaching storm, yet the electrical environment changed quickly enough that they still found themselves dealing with conditions they had never experienced before.
For recreational boaters, the incident is a useful reminder that distance on a radar screen does not always translate into the margin of safety people expect, especially when storms are moving quickly.
Everyone Made It Back Safely
Axelbank reported that all five men reached shore safely, with no serious injuries despite the electrical shock and the alarming conditions aboard the boat.
Gilligan said the experience left a strong impression because neither he nor his friends had expected anything like it when they set out that morning.
What began as a practical question about whether the vessel was worth purchasing became a firsthand lesson in a weather phenomenon most people only read about.
The men did not buy the boat that day.
Still, in perhaps the most surprising part of the story, Gilligan told Axelbank they had not ruled it out.
The group was still considering the purchase despite the St. Elmo’s Fire encounter and the high-speed run back toward land.
That detail gives the story an oddly normal ending after such an unusual morning, but the experience itself was anything but ordinary.
For Gilligan, the sound of metal clicking, the sight of blue arcs spreading around the boat and the realization that lightning could follow made one lesson clear: when electrical activity starts appearing on a boat miles offshore, getting away from the storm is more important than finishing the test ride.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
