The ''Mebo II'' was originally the Dutch freighter ''Silvretta'', built in 1948 by De Groot en van Vliet,

Slikkerveer Slikkerveer is a village in the municipality of Ridderkerk, Netherlands. In 2004, 8550 people lived in Slikkerveer. It is located about 6 km east-southeast of the city of Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of c ...

. It had a weight of 630 tons and a length of 186 feet. In 1969, it was bought by

Edwin Bollier Edwin Bollier and his partner, Erwin Meister, founded Mebo Telecommunications AG in Zürich, Switzerland in 1969. The firm has traded in various electronic and telecommunication equipment and acted as consultants in the construction of radio st ...

and Erwin Meister, renamed and converted into an

offshore radio Offshore radio is radio broadcasting from ships or fixed maritime structures. Offshore broadcasters are usually unlicensed but transmissions are legal in international waters. This is in contrast to unlicensed broadcasting on land or within a nat ...

station at the same shipyard where it had been built. It was famous for its dramatic

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

color scheme. From 1970–1974, it broadcast as Radio North Sea International (RNI) from

international waters The terms international waters or transboundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water (or their drainage basins) transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed region ...

four miles off

Scheveningen Scheveningen () is one of the eight districts of The Hague, Netherlands, as well as a subdistrict () of that city. Scheveningen is a modern seaside resort with a long, sandy beach, an esplanade, a pier, and a lighthouse. The beach is popular ...

, one of the eight districts of

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. Transmissions were on AM medium wave (max105kW), shortwave (2x10kW) and FM (1 kW). Following RNI's closure due to the Dutch Marine Offences Act, it was announced that the ship would move to Italy to broadcast as that country's first offshore radio station. However, this plan fell through, and in 1976 the ship sailed to

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

where it operated for some time in coastal waters relaying Libyan state radio. Later its broadcast operations ceased, and it was sunk in 1984Target practice in the Mediterranean
when it was targeted for Libyan rocket practice.

References

{{Pirate radio ships Radio ships Ships of Libya Ships sunk as targets