World record as message in bottle found after 98 years

LONDON: A 97-year-old message in a bottle found by Scottish fishermen in their catch has set the world record for spending the longest time at sea.
The bottle was released on June 10, 1914 by the Glasgow School of Navigation, one of a batch of 1,890 scientific research bottles designed to float close to the seabed. The location of the returned bottles allowed researchers to map the undercurrents of the seas around Scotland.
So far, 315 bottles have been found, each containing a note asking the finder to record the date and place of the discovery and return it for a reward of sixpence.
Guinness World Records confirmed the April 12 discovery by the Shetland Islands fishing boat, the Scottish Government in Edinburgh said in an e-mailed statement.
“It was just a normal day and we were out fishing for monkfish,” Andrew Leaper, 43, who skippered the boat, Copious, said. “As we hauled in the nets, with a mixed catch of monks, megrim and cod, I spotted the bottleneck sticking out of the cod end of the net.
“I quickly grabbed the bottle before it fell back in the sea,” he added.
The bottle, known as 646B, was released on June 10, 1914, by Captain C. H. Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation as part of an experiment to track ocean currents.
“The story of scientific drift bottles is a fascinating one and harks back to an area when we were only beginning to understand the complexities of the seas,” Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said during a press conference.
“It’s amazing that nearly 98 years on bottles are still being returned to the Marine Laborator- and in such fantastic condition. With many bottles still unreturned there is always the chance in the coming years that a Scottish drift bottle will once again break the record,” he added.
Leaper said his friend Mark Anderson, who had set the previous record in 2006 on board the same vessel, was “very unhappy that I have topped his record.”
“He never stopped talking about it — and now I am the one who is immensely proud to be the finder of the world record message in a bottle.”
A spokesperson for Guinness World Records said: “We are pleased to hear that the same vessel helped to break the Guinness World Record for oldest message in a bottle twice. This is a fascinating record, both historically and scientifically. We hope that future expeditions will retrieve more of these treasured messages from the sea.”