On his many voyages captaining huge cargo ships through the Persian Gulf, Stephen Gudgeon had to stay alert to the risk of being intercepted by Iranian paramilitaries.
For the safety of his crews, their ships were typically fitted with razor wire and water cannons to help prevent hostile boardings by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). They also had to be wary of electronic interference with his tankers’ navigation systems.
This was particularly important because the vessels – up to 400 metres long – were often carrying 250,000 cubic metres of highly explosive gas in their hulls.
The seafarer, who retired after 50 years, says those dangers are nothing compared with those facing the 20,000 people trapped on 1,000 ships in the Gulf right now. They are unable to escape through the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively shut as Iran threatens to attack any vessel passing through it.
“Ships are just sitting targets,” says Gudgeon. “Even if you had an armed guard with a couple of guns on board the ship, they wouldn’t be able to take down a drone.”
Iran is incensed by US missions that have sunk at least 60 of the regime’s vessels, including most of its navy. Many of those attacks have been launched from US bases located in Arab countries.
But Iranian reprisals led to three ships being hit and set ablaze off the coasts of Oman and the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
The country’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, says his forces will continue “blocking the Strait of Hormuz”, disrupting international trade and increasing oil prices, which raises inflation in the wider economy.
The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent has pledged that “as soon as it is militarily possible, the US Navy, perhaps with an international coalition, will be escorting vessels through”. But that could still be weeks away.
The “chaos” being caused at sea could worsen in the coming days, says Gudgeon.
“There but for the grace of God goes every seafarer at the moment,” he says.
The Thai ship ‘Mayuree Naree’ is among the vessels that have been hit this week (Photo: Royal Thai Navy/ AFP via Getty)Dangers facing ships with explosive cargoes
Gudgeon admits that the dangers of sailing a vessel the length of three football pitches, filled with such flammable cargo, through seas rife with potentially hostile craft, played on his mind during his five-decade career before retirement in 2022.
With so many similar tankers now stuck in the Gulf, still laden with oil or gas, he is concerned about the risks of them being anchored close together, making them a “big target” that’s easy to hit.
Most of these vessels are double-hulled, meaning they have inner and outer watertight shells to help prevent them sinking and avoid the risks of oil spills. However, they are not armoured; oil and gas tankers are tougher than most ships but remain vulnerable.
An attack in 2021 showed just how vulnerable the crews can be. Adrian Underwood, a British army veteran serving as a security guard on the oil tanker MV Mercer Street, was killed in its cabin when the ship was hit by multiple Iranian-made Shahed drones. The UK blamed Tehran but the regime denied responsibility for the incident, which also killed the Romanian captain.
Iran has been hitting cargo ships after US attacks like this on its navy vessels (Photo: Centcom/Reuters)Attacks on shipping are monitored by the UK Maritime Trade Organisation, run by the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. It receives emergency calls and emails from crews of all nationalities.
“They keep an eye on you and if necessary send resources to help you,” says Gudgeon. Given the vastness of the seas, however, assistance is often still “several hours away”.
To avoid sailing into a life-threatening crisis, sailors are entitled to leave their ships when they dock at any port, but Gudgeon says many in the Gulf won’t have had an opportunity to do this because the conflict started so suddenly.
The UK-based union Nautilus International is assisting members who are stranded. “Seafarers are not expendable,” it has said. “They must not be treated as collateral damage in geopolitical conflict.”
Gudgeon is concerned that some crews could run out of provisions. “No fresh food will be available after a week or two.” He adds that ships are fitted with equipment to turn seawater into drinking water, but often this only runs while the vessels are moving.
“If you’re a good shipping company, you would probably make sure your ships have several weeks of frozen food on board… But there are shipping companies around the world who aren’t as thoughtful as that.”
Although there may be efforts to resupply these ships via boats sent out from ports around the Gulf, Gudgeon warns: “Logistically, with that number of ships and the demand, it would be a problem.”
IRGC patrol boats surrounded the Stena Impero in 2019 and detained it for two months (Photo: Hasan Shirvani / Mizan News Agency / AFP via Getty)Threats from IRGC boats
Gudgeon joined the Merchant Navy in 1972. Following the Iranian revolution seven years later, the country posed a threat to shipping throughout much of his five-decade career.
During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, missiles fired by both sides in the conflict killed more than 400 civilian seafarers.
After that conflict, the biggest threat tended to be hostage-taking.
Gudgeon recalls how nervous he and his crew felt while passing through the Strait of Hormuz the same day that Iranian forces had stormed another British-registered ship, taking the crew hostage. The Stena Impero was held for two months in 2019, after Iranian forces abseiled onto the deck of the vessel from a helicopter hovering above it.
That move was in apparent retaliation for Royal Marines seizing an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar when it was believed to be breaking international sanctions, although Tehran denied this.
Royal Navy personnel after their release from Iran in 2007 (Photo: Ben Stanstall/AFP via Getty)“We would have practice drills for if people got on board,” says Gudgeon. “We could evacuate to a safe room, a citadel within the ship, but that meant you would have no control over the ship at all.”
His own ships were never seized, though he had worrying experiences of “being buzzed by the IRGC in their fast patrol boats”.
“They used to come and stop in front of you, and you’d have to divert for them. It was all just to make you feel uneasy.”
A major diplomatic incident occurred in 2007 when 15 Royal Navy personnel began searching a boat which they believed was involved in car smuggling – only to be surrounded by the Iranian navy, which captured them at gunpoint. They were eventually released 13 days later.
The risks are increased by electronic “spoofing”, says Gudgeon. “It affects your satellite navigation systems, to make it look as if you are in one place but you are actually in another.
“If you stray out of the navigation lanes, it’s immediately highlighted by the Iranian authorities, and they will come and divert the boat and arrest the crew.”
That is probably the least of seafarers’ worries right now, however, knowing they could be hit by a potentially catastrophic explosion at any moment.
@robhastings.bsky.social
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