Originally Posted by
Bfah
With all these ships grouping up, with no one seemingly to know why or what the purpose is - I wonder why no one is listening to the Ships radios
I mean VHF Marine Ch16 (Emergency/Hailing), Ch9 backup Hailing. Ch10 Weather, Ch13 Bridge to Bridge, Ch68-72 General chat.
Maybe Ch13 Bridge to Bridge would have been used by the individual ships captains to 'get together'.
Not hard to listen in...!
The Iranians are using VHF channel 16 to issue orders to the ships, the same channel is used to negotiate passage and payment of the toll.
An important aspect is being missed here.
Every ship and its crew stuck in the Persian Gulf are, in effect, Iranian hostages. Every ship has a price that must be paid before it can leave...tantamount to a ransom. Any ships that try to run the Khasab-Larak / Ramchah line without paying, are attacked. But it does not end there. On the Gulf of Oman side of the Strait, ships have been waiting to enter the Persian Gulf for months now. They too, along with their crews, are effectively hostages of both Iran - who demand a toll / ransom to enter the Persian Gulf - and the USN who also have not allowed ships to pass, granted no toll or ransom as yet from the US but there was discussion of a 50/50 split tween Iran and the US for tolls / ransom.
The crews aboard the ships are innocent victims of the conflict, much like the civilians on land are...but the crews cannot leave, they are supplied with the basics - food, water, medical supplies etc, the shipping companies are doing their best to keep their crews fed and healthy but the mental and physical strain will be immense. Not knowing if or when they can go home, many of the ships are fully laden with oil, methanol, LPG...a ready made floating bomb that either side could lose patience and attack without notice and on a whim. Port facilities within the Persian Gulf are limited on space and capacity, they are not built to handle so many ships that would normally only be there for 36 to 48 hours before leaving and many ports have also been damaged which limits their ability to handle ships further still. Gulf of Oman is still safe despite sporadic attacks on Fujairah, the ships can be resupplied relatively easily and crews can, with a bit of logistics, be replaced...that is not the case for the ships in the Persian Gulf.
Lets not forget the thousands of men and women aboard these ships whilst a war of words continues.....they are all hostages with a price on their heads.
There is still no trace of CMA CGM San Antonio other than her last AIS signal in Dubai before she sailed through the Strait. Fortune Lord and Interstellar are also AIS dark, no trace of either ship despite both entering the Iranian controlled shipping lane north of Larak.
One ship, Grand Mariner, owned by RCL is a containership that has been anchored outside of the Strait of Hormuz on the Gulf of Oman side for the last 4 days seeking permission to enter the Persian Gulf, she like hundreds of others cannot move and frequently has Iranian craft surrounding her. Neither the ship or the shipping company are subject to US sanctions.
Just inside the Strait of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, a Norwegian flagged chemical / oil products tanker is also waiting to move. She is owned by Nouri-Alwan Marine and anglo Iraqi / Norwegian company. She departed Khor Al Zubair, Iraq, as you can see, she is not listing her destination only that she is Iraqi with a Russian crew. The ship and shipping company are not subject to US sanctions.
