What It’s Like to Steer a Giant Tanker Through the Strait of Hormuz

At the time he emailed, Smith’s ship, one of the world’s largest, still had eight hours before it made it through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway linking the oil-rich Persian Gulf with global markets. A third of the world’s seaborne petroleum, and a huge volume of liquefied gas, pass through the strait every day. On July 19, Iran seized a U.K.-flagged tanker there in an apparent retaliation for Britain’s Royal Marines helping to arrest a vessel transporting Iran’s crude in the Mediterranean earlier in the month in an alleged violation of Syria sanctions.

Smith is responsible for 30 crewmen of various nationalities. His fears—perhaps the first time such anxieties have been expressed by a captain of a Gulf tanker since the crisis began—highlight the plight of merchant seafarers who’ve been caught up in tensions between Iran on one side and the U.S. and Britain on the other that have been turning increasingly confrontational in recent weeks. Since mid-May, a half-dozen ships have been attacked in the region, with Washington blaming Iran for the incidents. Iran, which denies the charges, is furious that the Royal Marines helped seize a cargo transporting Iranian crude oil near Gibraltar in the Mediterranean Sea and, before the July 19 seizure, had vowed to retaliate. U.S. and Iranian drones have been getting blown up. On July 22, Iran announced it had rounded up 17 alleged CIA-trained spies and planned to execute them. On Twitter, Trump described the Iranian claim as “totally false” and “just more lies and propaganda (like their shot down drone).”

Smith, who’s forbidden by his employer from speaking to the media, said he wanted to be sure that he could in no way be identified because that might put his own life—and those of his crew—in danger. He’s a member of the Nautilus shipping trade union, which helped organize the conversation. He’s acutely aware of his powerlessness to protect his crew and ship. Vessel owners are asking the crews on ships passing Hormuz to deploy “best management practices” that had been designed to combat a surge in piracy off the coast of Somalia. But the military threat of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is a completely different matter.

“We do have drills where we play through scenarios,” he said in the email, responding promptly to each question. “How effective this training would be with multinational crews I cannot tell you. As far as I am concerned, we always think about the ‘what ifs’.” He added: “It is always going through my mind thinking about collision avoidance, if the other ship does something stupid and how you get out of a situation. I suppose it’s the same with what we are approaching.”

The Strait of Hormuz and the wider Gulf were recently given the highest possible risk designation by the Joint War Committee, an organization based in London that advises the insurance industry on how dangerous different parts of the world are. The listing gives underwriters scope to charge more for coverage. The tanker attacks resulted in those insurance costs rising as much as tenfold.

Smith would like to see crews paid a bonus when they have to work in the Gulf and other of the so-called Listed Areas designated by the committee—a practice the industry stopped a few years ago. It’s something that rankles Smith and members of Nautilus, given that insurers are charging more because of the greater risks of navigation. “I want to focus attention on the situation as long as possible,” Smith wrote. “The public have no real idea about how we work to get them the basic commodities they take for granted.”

As he traversed the waterway, he complained about a lack of attention from the tanker’s owner. “So far I have had no call, email or feedback from the company or charterers asking how we are. I am not surprised. This is typical. We sometimes feel totally ‘on our own.’”

Smith’s tanker safely departed the region.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.