In June 1904, Captain C.H. Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation set adrift a message in a bottle. This year, Andrew Leaper set the world record when he found Captain Brown’s bottle 9.38 nautical miles from where it was originally deposited.
The bottle is numbered 646B and contained a postcard on which was written:
“Please state where and when this card was found, and then put it in the nearest Post Office. You will be informed in reply where and when it was set adrift. Our object is to find out the direction of the deep currents of the North Sea.”
Not as exciting as a long lost love letter or SOS, but still pretty cool! Apparently, this was one of almost 2000 bottles that had been set afloat to learn and study the water currents and is one of only 315 returned so far.
The previous record for oldest message in a bottle found was in 2006 and was actually set by Leaper’s good friend, Mark Anderson, who made his discovery on the exact same boat as Leaper! Which means that not only did they set this record twice, but they broke their own record this time around. Talk about luck!
Everyone is hopeful that more of these bottles will be discovered as well. How awesome would it be to eventually have all 1,890 bottles together again?