Photograph: AP

The current recommended response on a merchant ship on being boarded by pirates is to radio a distress call,  disable the ship’s engines and to retreat into a “citadel,” a safe locked-down space aboard the ship and await either rescue or until the pirates simply give up and go away.   That is exactly what the officers and crew of the MV Montecristo did when boarded by pirates last week.

Once they retreated to the citadel, however, they apparently lacked a means to communicate with their NATO rescuers. Whether they neglected to bring portable radios or batteries into the citadel is not clear. Lacking all else, they relied on a more traditional means of communication – they stuffed a message in a bottle, stuck a flashing beacon on top and threw the bottle out a port hole into the sea. When NATO forces retrieved the bottle and learned that the crew was safe and secure behind locked doors, they launched a raid on the ship and captured the pirates.

Message in a Bottle: Old-School S.O.S. Helps Rescue Hijacked Ship

Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing the story along.