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6·8 days agoDunno about war, but the CENTCOM release is pretty clear-cut:
The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas
Many people seem to have this confused.
- The US blockade is on (as currently implemented) the Gulf of Oman, not the Strait of Hormuz.
- As far as I know, one tanker, Elpis, has transited the Strait, and then stopped – I have to assume was stopped, by somebody – a short way into the Gulf.
- Rich Starry has not yet passed the Gulf. It has not even reached the point where Elpis stopped, but it’s on track to do so pretty soon.
- Elpis departed an Iranian port. This directly defies the stated US blockade.
- Rich Starry departed the UAE, which does not actually violate the stated US blockade (which explicitly allows ships transiting “to and from non-Iranian ports”).
- Rich Starry is under US sanctions due to previously being determined as aiding Iran. It is also Chinese-owned. Unclear how these factors will play into things.
So in summary Rich Starry hasn’t passed the US blockade yet, and even if it does that says nothing about the effectiveness of the blockade, because by the blockade’s wording it should be allowed through anyway.
Source https://xcancel.com/DropSiteNews/status/2043921010311741860, CENTCOM, and AIS data.
Edit 10:30 UTC: https://www.marinetraffic.com/ shows no AIS updates from Starry in the last 2 hours, seems like it stopped sending data in a similar area to Elpis. AIS didn’t actually show the ship coming to a stop, just a lack of updates. The last update had it keeping course at a relatively fast 8.1 knots. I read that there may be GPS jamming and other stuff going on in the area, so not sure what this really means.
Edit 2 12:00 UTC: nope, they are outttta there. I’m guessing they’re not going to China today.
Thanks! Looks like that 180’s showing on my noob free tier now too. Pretty much the same thing Elpis did; through the strait itself no problems but then a sudden 180 in the Gulf right about the same place as Starry. Elpis came to a standstill almost immediately after but Starry is allegedly still doing 8.1 kn, strange.