28 Attacks in October: Hormuz Fleet Was Never Built for War

By Amara Osei

October was the worst month on record for attacks on merchant shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz — 28 confirmed and reported strikes, according to Washington Institute data cited by Reuters on 23 October. Oil is now washing up on Emirati beaches. The uncomfortable engineering question follows: were these ships ever designed, crewed or equipped to survive being shot at?

The numbers don't argue. Since the US-Israeli war with Iran began on 28 February, the institute has counted 113 attacks in the Strait and surrounding waterways, and October tops records it has kept since 2017. The IMO's own list records around 120 incidents in the Strait and wider Middle East; UKMTO had logged 135 conflict-related incidents by 16 October. The totals differ because methods differ, and UKMTO reporting is voluntary. The direction of travel doesn't.

What does this mean for the tanker fleet?

More than 30 VLCCs have been damaged, 11 of them in October alone, per a Reuters review of IMO and MarineTraffic data — roughly 3.5% of the world's VLCC fleet. Greek risk consultancy Marisks counted a dozen ships attacked between 5 and 11 October, the highest weekly total of the conflict.

The human cost is heavy too. By September, the IMO counted at least 22 seafarers killed across 80 verified attacks around Hormuz since the end of February. Five more died in an attack on the Honour 25 off Somalia, with survivors rescued on 29 September — proof the danger has outgrown one strait.

Ships keep going in anyway. Daily freight rates above $1 million are drawing tonnage to load inside the Gulf, Reuters reported, even as IMF PortWatch logged just four Strait transits on 18 October against a pre-war average of about 85 a day. Every transit is a crew betting on probability.

The stakes are why. The Strait normally carries about a fifth of the world's seaborne oil and LNG, and each laden VLCC holds roughly two million barrels. Concentrate that much value and hazard in a narrow waterway and you build an ideal target — with an environmental price attached to every successful strike.

Who pays when the cargo spills?

On 23 October, the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment confirmed teams were containing oil leaking from a tanker offshore. Umm Al Quwain closed its beaches and coastal areas; Sharjah closed Al Hamriya beach as a precaution; the next day Ras Al Khaimah shut all of its beaches until further notice.

The ministry didn't name the vessel. International maritime agencies identified it as the Gem No.2, a 330-metre tanker struck in a suspected drone attack on 9 or 10 October, from which 22 Indian seafarers were rescued. A European Space Agency radar image from 21 October showed oil leaking from a tanker about 25 kilometres off Umm Al Quwain.

The IMO had already taken a political position: at MEPC 84 in the spring, member states adopted resolution MEPC.406(84), strongly condemning Iran's attacks on merchant vessels in the region. Condemnation, however, doesn't seal a ruptured cargo tank.

Are SOLAS, ISM and ISPS fit for this?

Largely, no — and by design. SOLAS fire protection was built around accidental fires: a leaking fuel pipe, an electrical fault, a cargo blaze. The design assumption is an internal event, detected early, contained by structural boundaries and fought with intact systems.

An external strike breaks every link at once. A missile or drone can breach fire boundaries, rupture fuel and cargo lines, sever cable runs and damage fire mains in a single instant. Fixed systems may be compromised before anyone reaches a release station.

Electrical power is often the decisive weakness. Emergency generators, switchboards and cabling are separated from main machinery spaces, but separation designed against an engine room fire may not survive blast and fragments. Lose power and you lose fire pumps, ventilation control, steering and lighting — precisely when you need all of them.

Fuel isolation fails similarly. Quick-closing valves work only if their air, hydraulic or electrical controls survive the initial damage. On a tanker, holed cargo tanks add flooding, progressive leakage and stability problems to the fire, forcing a crew trained for one emergency to manage three.

The ISM Code requires companies to identify emergencies and drill for them — in principle, that already covers attack damage. In practice, most safety management systems treat fire, flooding and blackout as separate scenarios with separate checklists, rarely rehearsed together. The ISPS Code, written after September 2001, was built around access control and security levels. It was never intended to tell a chief engineer how to restore power after a projectile passes through the funnel casing.

What can owners actually do?

Armour-plating tankers isn't the answer — the cost would be prohibitive and the principle wrong, since protecting merchant shipping is ultimately a state responsibility. But there's substantial middle ground within the gift of owners and technical departments:

• Combined-casualty drills: rehearse fire, flooding and loss of main power occurring together, with key personnel deemed injured and a primary control position deemed lost. Uncomfortable and exposing — which is why they're valuable.
• Engineering reviews: examine emergency power cable routing, emergency fire pump protection, independence of quick-closing valve controls, and whether portable pumps, smoke extraction and hull patching are sized for damage, not routine leaks.
• Pollution response in the plan: crews should know which tanks can be isolated, how cargo can be transferred within the hull, and how fast salvage can realistically arrive in a war zone where tugs may themselves be targets.
• Gas and chemical carriers first: a breached LPG or chemical cargo threatens crew and coastline in ways a crude spill doesn't, and plans written for collision may not reflect how fast an attack escalates.
• Crew welfare as resilience: fatigue and stress degrade decision-making exactly when clear thinking matters. Rest management, honest briefings and genuine freedom to refuse unsafe passages aren't soft extras.
• Abandonment guidance: lifeboats are designed for a sinking or burning ship, not one that may be struck again during mustering. Masters need clear company guidance on when to abandon, when to shelter, and how to communicate when satellite positioning itself may be unreliable.

Regulators have a role too. Flag states and class societies could share anonymised damage data from this conflict — which systems survived, which failed, why. The industry learned hard lessons during the tanker war of the 1980s; much of that knowledge has faded. It shouldn't be relearned at the cost of further lives.

The SOLAS, ISM and ISPS framework remains sound for the world it was designed for, and most ships will never face a missile. The ships in the Gulf this autumn are facing exactly that. Ships were built to survive the sea; this year has shown some must now survive the people on it — and the time to plan is before the next alarm sounds, not after.