Hormuz

I have become a shipping expert again, after several years where I would turn down any requests for comment because I didn't feel I was keeping up with things. Now I am keeping up with things, because these are interesting times. So here are a few pieces I've written over the last couple of weeks. Apologies that there are paywalls involved. If I could remember how to link to a pdf, I'd do that, but I can't.

1. I was asked to find seafarers actually stuck on ships to talk to. I tried very hard, but didn't get anywhere. Finally I got in touch with an Indian who works in seafarer welfare, who put me in touch with the cousin of Dalip (or Dilip) Singh, a young Indian man who is missing after his ship, the shadow fleet tanker MV Skylight, was hit by Iranian missiles. The piece is here.

2. I've returned to Linked-in, which I have avoided for years, because that's where all the shipping folk are, and I have had to ask for their help. Delightfully, they have provided it willingly. Thank you shipping folk. One morning, I opened my email to find a message from a seafarer stuck on a tanker in the Gulf. I read it and was so impressed by it: it was articulate and angry and poignant. I didn't want it to get wasted as a few quotes in the piece I was writing, for Unherd, so I asked my Unherd editor to publish it as a standalone piece. He did and I am glad. The link to Unherd is here but I also published the piece on my Substack, which is free to access.

3. Next was a piece for the Sunday Times again on "deceptive shipping practices," which is when ships disguise their identities, names, flags or destinations. It's very easy to do and it is a testament to the shipping industry that it doesn't happen more often. For more on zombie shipping, spoofing, AIS handshakes, read the piece here.

4. Finally, so far, another piece for Unherd, on the possible impact of this crisis on everything. A really stupid clickbait headline, which I would never have approved, had they asked ("how to get rich off the Strait of Hormuz", so dumb). But here it is.

Finally, here is Dilip Singh, the young Indian from rural Rajasthan who went to sea because he was the only wage earner in his family, and is now missing, certainly dead.