An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members.
The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020.
The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found.
Photo courtesy of Reddit user @almym
The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name.
A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man and his friend found a message in a bottle washed up in a rock pool on the coast of Inis Oirr Island (Inisheer) off the west coast of Ireland.
The bottle contained a letter with the Chinese character for Lee and a note in Indonesian, translated by the Reddit user to “please send help, we have been lost since Dec. 20, there are three of us here, we don’t know the name of this island, we are injured.”
It also had the words “help hello SOS” and “Yong Yu Sing 18” in English.
Lee’s wife reported the vessel missing on Dec. 30, 2020, after losing contact.
No distress signal was received, although the vessel’s owner contacted the Suao Fishery Communication Radio Station on Jan. 1, 2021, for assistance.
Subsequent tracking indicated that the ship had likely gone missing near Midway Atoll in Hawaii.
A US aircraft later located the vessel drifting at sea, although all 10 crew members were missing when crew from nearby Taiwanese fishing boats boarded the boat.
The vessel was towed back to Suao port, a national record-setting journey of 18,250km, taking 57 days.
An investigation in 2021 found no evidence of a criminal act on board the vessel.
The Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office concluded that the incident was the result of severe weather causing structural damage in multiple areas of the vessel, closing the case on June 1 of that year.
The family of 63-year-old Lee has been informed and the Suao Fishermen's Association would report the incident to the government, association director Chen Chun-sheng (陳春生) said today.
Chen said he hopes the government can verify the message and coordinate an international search-and-rescue response if its contents are found to be true.
Additional reporting by Yu Ming-chin
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