The practice of this invention enables saving a life. A passive distress alert for distressed vessel in water is provided. The self-activating alert is positioned on or near hull bottom zone and distress message is at least partially presented, without human or mechanical, electronic or other trigger, when vessel is keel over or in other overturned positioned and can indicate relative percent keel over. The alert reflects natural and artificial light and/or has components which are fluorescent, with or without special black light, either at day or night to present a distress message to a detector. Detector can be an aided or unaided human eye, camera, bar code reader, or other alphabetic or numerical character or symbol electronic recognition device. Distress message can be SOS, MOB, HELP, CQD, R&R, MAYDAY and other local or universal distress messages or combinations thereof or special distress alert comprising bars, dots, dashes and other symbols. A vessel comprising a passive distress alert is disclosed.