Sealand

Sealand, micronation located roughly 7.5 miles (about 12 km, or 6.5 nautical miles) off the coast of Suffolk, England, in the North Sea. Sealand sits atop Roughs Tower, a steel and concrete platform, one of a series of “sea forts” originally built to defend Great Britain during World War II. Roy Bates, a former British army major turned radio broadcaster, declared the platform a sovereign principality in 1967 after occupying Roughs Tower in late 1966 to establish a pirate radio station. Though Britain extended its territorial waters in 1987, thus enveloping Sealand, the micronation has continued to assert its sovereignty under the Bates family.

Background and conception

Roughs Tower, or HM Fort Roughs, was originally built in 1942, one in a series of large sea forts built in the North Sea by Great Britain during World War II. These outposts were intended to be manned by British seamen armed with antiaircraft weaponry. Most of the sea forts were built within Britain’s internationally recognized territorial waters, which extended 3 nautical miles (5.5 km) from shore at the time. Roughs is located 6.5 nautical miles (12 km) from the coast, making it then one of the few forts in international waters.

Roughs Tower is a simple structure, consisting of two towers made of reinforced concrete, topped with a steel platform sitting roughly 110 feet (33.5 meters) above the ocean. Officers were housed in a one-story structure atop the deck, which also featured antiaircraft guns and a kitchen, while crew quarters were in the concrete supports. At the height of the war, Roughs was occupied by up to 300 Royal Navy soldiers tasked with defending Britain from Nazi bombers. After the war’s conclusion, Roughs and the other sea forts were rendered obsolete; by 1956 the Royal Navy had abandoned the station, and it began to fall into disrepair.

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At the time of Sealand’s conception, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) controlled the airwaves in the United Kingdom, playing popular music only late in the night. As a result offshore pirate radio stations that could skirt mainland rules had become popular. Roy Bates (in full Paddy Roy Bates), a British army major turned radio entrepreneur, had tried and failed to establish an offshore broadcasting center for his station Radio Essex. In the early 1960s he was evicted from Knock John, another sea fort closer to Britain’s coast. Looking to avoid British jurisdiction, Bates moved further away from the coast to Roughs Tower, after the departure of the sea fort’s former occupant, Jack Moore, who in 1965 also had ambitions to set up a pirate radio station there called Wonderful Radio London. Bates occupied the platform on December 24, 1966.

Bates formalized his occupation on September 2, 1967, when he declared the Principality of Sealand, invoking the international law concept of jus gentium (“law of nations”) over terra nullius (“nobody’s land”). Bates declared himself and his wife, Joan, prince and princess of the new country, respectively. The couple and their two children, Michael and Penelope, moved into the fort’s old quarters soon after, becoming Sealand’s first residents.

Sovereignty and recognition

In 1968 Michael Bates fired what he claimed to be warning shots from a .22 pistol at a service crew working on a buoy near Roughs Tower. Bates was technically a British citizen at the time, and he was subsequently charged with illegal possession and discharge of a firearm. The court ruled, however, that because the incident took place outside British territory, no judgment could be handed down. Sealand’s official website asserts that this ruling constituted a de facto recognition of the micronation’s sovereignty, as in the eyes of the law the platform was distinct from the U.K. On September 25, 1975, Roy Bates proclaimed Sealand’s constitution. A currency featuring an image of Princess Joan, as well as passports, stamps, and a national anthem were also developed. Sealand adopted an official flag, as well as a coat of arms that says E Mare Libertas (“From the Sea, Freedom”).

In the 1970s a German businessman named Alexander Achenbach approached Roy Bates with a proposal to expand Sealand to include a number of amenities, including a casino, post office, and hotel. Bates made Achenbach the micronation’s foreign minister. Achenbach attempted to get other countries to ratify Sealand’s constitution, but to no avail; a court in Cologne, then in West Germany, ruled that the sea fort did not have enough community life or sufficient living space to be considered a country. In 1978 Achenbach, who was unhappy with what he saw as the Bates family’s lack of support for his plans, tried to further his business plans by force and hired a small group of Dutch and German mercenaries. This group staged a coup d’état, taking Michael Bates captive for a number of days before putting him aboard a fishing trawler bound for the Netherlands. Roy and Michael Bates later retook the platform with the help of a few armed guards, using a hired helicopter. Bates held one of the Germans prisoner after the incident; the latter was released only after negotiations with a West German diplomat, a sequence of events that Bates considered further validation of Sealand’s sovereignty. There is some speculation that the coup was a hoax, however, as Roy Bates was later represented in court by one of Sealand’s Dutch occupiers.

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Sealand has continued to be in the news over the decades. Declassified British documents from the 1960s revealed government unease over the presence of the micronation, as well as eventually shelved plans to bomb it. In 1997 the investigation into fashion designer Gianni Versace’s murder revealed a person of interest had used a forged Sealand passport. Further investigations revealed a global scam involving forged Sealand passports and license plates, some of which were tied to drug smugglers and arms dealers. Some of the documents had been created by what Achenbach claimed was a government-in-exile.

On October 1, 1987, the U.K. extended its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles (22 km) from its shore. The day before, Roy Bates had also extended the Principality of Sealand’s waters to 12 nautical miles from land. Although Sealand now lies within U.K. waters, the latter has made no attempts to take it over, and Sealand has existed relatively undisturbed.

Status in the 21st century

In the early 2000s a company called HavenCo established a short-lived Internet server on the platform. In 2006 a fire burned through Sealand’s generator room, requiring one person to be evacuated to England for medical aid. Michael Bates claims that Sealand rejected a request for refuge from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2010.

On October 9, 2012, Roy Bates died, passing down the rank of prince to Michael, who continues to rule the micronation while also running a fishing business in the U.K. The platform is usually occupied only by a caretaker guard, with Michael Bates preferring to live on the mainland.

In recent years Sealand has generated revenue by hosting Internet servers, granting noble titles to people across the globe, and selling Sealand merchandise online. Sealand is represented by American football teams, the men’s Sealand Seahawks and the women’s Sealand She-Hawks, which play in exhibition games, in addition to teams for cricket, basketball, softball, and athletics. The micronation also hosts an annual charity swim between Suffolk and the platform.