A local story that is making international waves, a SOS message found in a bottle that washed ashore the coast of Inis Óirr earlier this month, could be potentially linked to the crew of Taiwanese longliner Yong Yu Sing No. 18, who were reported missing in early 2021.
Discovered by Matthew Laming and Chris Hurley, the pair found the bottle inside a rock pool near the Plassey Shipwreck on Inis Óirr on July 19.
"The bottle was sealed with a cork and some wax that had a floral/salty smell," explained Laming. "The note inside was bound by some twine that seemed to be also covered in the same wax."
Unable to open the bottle via its wax-sealed spout, the pair were left with no choice but to break the bottle to retrieve the note. The note in question would create an intercontinental rabbit hole, which seemingly leads to 10 missing fishermen last seen 606 nautical miles (600km ) northeast of Midway Atoll, an island in the North Pacific Ocean.
Written in a mix of Chinese, Indonesian and English, the purported SOS message has been roughly translated as the following: “PLEASE SEND HELP! WE ARE LOST SINCE 12/20. THERE ARE 3 OF US HERE. WE DO NOT KNOW THE NAME OF THE ISLAND. INJURED."
Below this are the words, "HELP HELLO SOS", the Chinese symbol for "Li", which is the surname of the vessel's captain, and the words "YONG YU SING 18."
"We used Google Translate for the first part of the message, and when we saw the SOS, we dismissed it as a hoax, because how often do you see an SOS message? Especially in a bottle," explained Laming. "We just dismissed it and put it up on Reddit for interest's sake. It was only when people started commenting and linking it back to an actual crew and ship that we thought it possibly might not be."
Background
The Yong Yu Sing No. 18 was reported missing on January 1, 2021, by the ship's owner, who said he had lost contact with the vessel's captain, Captain Li, on December 30, 2020. In the days following, the damaged vessel was located by an American rescue aircraft some 600km northeast of Midway Atoll, but there was no sign of Captain Li, his nine Indonesian crewmen or the lifeboat.
Despite speculations about what may have happened to the crew, the fate of the 10 men is, to date, unknown.
Garnering interest from internet sleuths from across the globe, the story has grown exponentially in the 10 days since it was discovered, with Taiwanese media and politicians discussing the find and its potential links to the missing 10-man crew of the tuna longliner fishing vessel.
"Every reason we came up with to dismiss it as a hoax, there was something to discount it, and got us wondering," said Laming, going on to explain that even the bottle used for the note, a Stella Artois cider bottle, was for a product discontinued in Ireland in early 2021, matching the timeline of the events.
"It is all so specific, if it is a hoax -- why choose that ship? Why choose a ship that is unknown in this part of the world?
"It just makes it even more interesting."
Theories
With the note now submitted to the gardaí in Galway, internet communities on Reddit are abuzz with potential leads. This buzz has spread nearly 10,000km from Galway to Taiwan, where politicians and national media outlets have reported on Laming and Hurley's discovery.
Earlier this week, an article published by Taiwan's national media outlet, Central News Agency (CNA ), said, "Chen Chunsheng, general secretary of the Su'ao District Fishermen's Association, said today that he hopes the government will verify it through channels. If it is true, he will ask international organisations to assist in the rescue."
Online, theories are buzzing about the note, some even going so far as to identify the island mentioned in the letter and the route that the bottle may have taken to arrive in Ireland. Thanks to occurrences like the 1992 Friendly Floatees spill, which saw 28,800 children's bath toys flood the Pacific Ocean from Hong Kong and later washed up in parts of North and South America and Europe.
For Laming, these theories have swayed how he views his discovery. "In the beginning, I was 90 per cent sure it was a hoax. Now? I am about 60 to 70 per cent sure.
"If anything does come of this, and it would be a slim chance, it would be amazing. It is a mad story altogether.
"You couldn't make it up."
