ship

Sam Catling lived the dream by ditching a supermarket job for a supposedly fun role as a cruise ship entertainer. He opens up about his day to day life on a cruise ship, the long hours he worked, and how much he took home each month

Working on a cruise ship is the kind of job everyone fantasises about now and again. And when Sam Catling was just 18, he landed what many people would consider a dream role – a cruise ship entertainer.

Sam, now 38, now shares his memories of his time at sea, as well as interviewing others from across the maritime industry in his podcast Deck Tales, and he’s even written a book, Seems Like Smooth Sailing, that gives an unflinching account of what it’s like to work at sea for months on end.

He jokingly refers to himself as a former ‘trolley wally’ and says his CV consisted of a paper round and a job collecting trollies at Asda when family members suggested he’d be a great cruise ship entertainer. His mum and granny had just come back from a cruise and had chatted to onboard entertainers about how they got into the role, before suggesting the idea to the outgoing Sam.

He spoke about how he managed to land the role, despite his lack of previous boating experience: “I used to get The Stage magazine delivered to my newsagent on a weekly basis, and I kept looking through the ads, and eventually I saw one that said ‘now receiving applications for entertainment hosts’ so I applied.

“The first question was ‘What previous experience do you have working in entertainment?’, and eventually I wrote ‘Ive had extensive experience pushing trolleys around Asda car park for the past two years’.”

With a drama GCSE and a few workshops under his belt, Sam soon found himself in Gibraltar on a boat that was in dry dock, attending two weeks of rehearsals as the ship was refurbished. In addition to entertainers such as himself, who did events from game shows to karaoke, there were a show team with West End-style performers who Sam said were a “triple threat” with dancing, singing, and acting skills.

The job was gruelling, with Sam revealing he worked seven days a week. Visits home were extremely rare, crew stayed on the ship the duration of their contracts, which for Sam’s first cruise was six months. The days were long too, with Sam admitting he became “quite the social drinker” due to his schedules requiring him to sit down and socialise with guests.

His shifts would often finish past midnight, and he’d head to the crew bar after work until 2am, before getting up at 7am to face the next day. Sam said he became skilled at power napping: “Between your different activities that you’d host I was down in my cabin having a power nap. If I had an indoor cabin I’d just close the door and you were in pitch black darkness, so it was really easy to just have a 30 minute nap.” But he admitted: “You wouldn’t know what time of day it was because you’re cutting out all the sunlight.”

His accommodation was included, as was food and expenses, and Sam said: “You’re not paying rent, your food’s taken care of, you’ve no heating and electric and gas bills and all of that stuff. It’s all taken care of, which is nice! You don’t have to worry about all those things. But then you are spending money when you go ashore, you know, going to eat out, because after a couple of weeks of being on board you are sick of the food.”

Sam revealed that, when he worked on ships around 2006, he was taking home about £1,200 to £1,300 a month from working seven days a week. Accommodation was shared, and Sam said only managers and the top talent such as the main singers in the shows would get their own cabins.

Despite this salary being representative of a job over 20 years ago, cruise ships don’t pay much more now. According to career site prospects.ac.uk, which advises students on employment routes, those with little experience shouldn’t expect big money for their long hours: “Entry-level cruise ship jobs, such as hospitality, housekeeping, retail, or waiting staff positions, typically pay around £1,000 to £1,500 per month, often with accommodation and meals included.”

But it claims that experienced crew can get decent salaries at sea: “With experience and progression into specialist or management roles, salaries can rise to between £2,000 and £4,000 per month. Senior officers, entertainment managers, engineers, and technical staff may earn considerably more.”

Sam worked on cruise ships for four years, and nowadays he runs his podcast, which he describes as his “passion” with over 60 episodes available, as well as taking on handyman jobs and occasionally working as a TV extra.

“I want to continue doing this until I’m an old man, because there’s 70% of the planet that’s covered in ocean, so I don’t think I’m going to run out of guests anytime soon. The podcast started with just being a platform for cruise ship crew, but now it’s something else. It’s cargo ship captains, I’ve spoken to a pirate, I’ve had a deep sea salvage scuba diver and tugboat captains.”

He added: “I just really wanted to drill down into something unique and authentic, and within a specific niche that people might not know about; the stories at sea that most people don’t hear. The public might not have an interest in ships, but people are still people, and the stories that happen at sea are there for everyone to hear about.”

Listen to Sam’s Deck Tales podcast here.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

Islamabad, Pakistan — More than 16 months after India and Pakistan fought a four-day air war, firing missiles and drones at each other, the South Asian neighbours came the closest since then to a military face-off — this time in the Arabian Sea.

Indian and Pakistani naval vessels collided on Tuesday, setting off tit-for-tat accusations. Pakistan’s government summoned India’s top diplomat in Islamabad on Wednesday, mirroring action New Delhi had taken hours earlier when it summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires and lodged a protest of its own over the incident.

The collision is the first direct military encounter between the nuclear-armed neighbours since their four-day conflict in May 2025, when Indian air strikes and Pakistani retaliation brought both countries closer to full-scale war than at any point in decades.

So far, details of what happened remain disputed. Neither government has released video, track data or an independent account – and each statement places the blame on the other’s vessel.

But analysts say it underscored the risks of unintended incidents in the seas that could potentially escalate into broader crises, when India and Pakistan have few military and diplomatic mechanisms left in place to defuse tensions.

Two accounts

According to Pakistan’s Foreign Office statement issued on Wednesday evening, the navy has been conducting its biennial SEASPARK-26 exercise inside its exclusive economic zone since September 1 .

A country’s EEZ extends 200 nautical miles (370km) from its coast. Its territorial waters are only 12 nautical miles (22km) from the coast, with the rest of the EEZ in international waters. While vessels from other countries can pass through a nation’s EEZ in international waters unencumbered, they cannot exploit the waters economically: that right belongs only to the country whose EEZ it is.

Pakistan said that an Indian vessel, identified as the guided-missile destroyer INS Kolkata, had “repeatedly” tried to enter the exercise area since September 7 .

On September 15 , it said, Kolkata made a “dangerous” change of course that brought it into contact with a Pakistani vessel identified in local media as PNS Hunain, an offshore patrol vessel.

“Pakistan strongly rejects this belligerent Indian action,” the Pakistani Foreign Office said, calling it a violation of a 1991 bilateral agreement requiring warships to stay at least three nautical miles (5.5km, 3.4 miles) apart in international waters.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the warship was on “routine surveillance” in international waters when a Pakistani vessel approached at high speed and manoeuvred unsafely.

Neither government has named the vessels in its own on-record statement, and India has not confirmed or denied the Kolkata identification.

The two navies last collided in June 2011, when Pakistani frigate PNS Babur brushed against Indian frigate INS Godavari in the Gulf of Aden, while escorting a merchant vessel freed from Somali pirates.

Each side blamed the other then too. That row faded within weeks.

The risks

Retired Vice Admiral Ahmad Saeed of the Pakistan Navy said the pattern — two ships pressing close without a clear intent to collide — was familiar from Cold War-era “bumping” incidents between Soviet and US ships in the Black Sea.

But he argued that India and Pakistan are worse placed to manage similar encounters.

“There’s no bilateral Incidents at Sea agreement, the kind the US and USSR signed in 1972, and no navy-to-navy hotline,” Saeed told Al Jazeera. “Article 10 sets a distance, but it gives no manoeuvring rules and no procedure for investigating an incident afterwards. That gap is exactly why each side can just accuse the other.”

Article 10 of the 1991 confidence-building agreement between the two nations requires warships to stay at least three nautical miles (5.6km, 3.5 miles) apart in international waters.

Saeed said the greater risk was what might follow the collision: sharper tactics such as fire-control radar lock-ons or helicopter overflights and eventually “a contact with actual casualties.”

Muhammad Shareh Qazi, a Lahore-based security and maritime analyst, however, pointed to the same 1991 agreement, which he said requires 30 days’ written notice before a military exercise, as well as international collision regulations that apply to both countries as signatories to the UN maritime convention.

“If this collision really had the potential to escalate militarily, you’d have noticed by now,” Qazi said. “There’s a tool for that, called chaff, fired just above the bow or stern purely to signal you could escalate if needed. Nothing like that happened here.”

Both navies also have their own internal accountability channels, he added, with a captain found to have acted without authorisation facing a court martial process separate from any diplomatic protest.

On fishermen routinely detained for straying across the Sir Creek boundary, which is not demarcated between India and Pakistan further south, Qazi said the link to incidents further out at sea was indirect but real.

“Clear demarcation could help close those ambiguities over time, by reducing the ambiguity around where and how these interactions are expected to occur,” he added.

Saeed was more cautious about how contained an incident like this would remain.

“This hasn’t stayed quiet. Both governments went public with protests within a day of each other,” he said, adding that what made the moment riskier than 2011 was that “both publics are primed after last year’s conflict, which was not the case in 2011.”

Similar close-quarters confrontations have become more frequent between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

In the most recent flare-up, on July 24 , Philippine officials said a Chinese vessel came within about seven metres (23 feet) of a Philippine fisheries boat near Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine-claimed reef that China has controlled since 2012, and that Chinese coast guard ships fired water cannon at Philippine vessels.

Whether this week’s collision follows that pattern or fades like the 2011 incident depends less on the ships than on what comes next diplomatically, Qazi said.

“If, in the next 24 to 48 hours, an official statement suggests there was a genuine cause to manufacture an incident for the purpose of escalation, then yes, there may be a real possibility of this happening again,” he added.

Search and rescue are ongoing after Virgo Transport 8, with 243 people on board, lost contact with its operator.

Rescuers are searching for 140 people from an Indonesian passenger ship that sank in the Java Sea after 103 others were evacuated, one of whom has died, a search and ‌rescue agency official said.

The Virgo Transport 8, with 243 people on board, lost contact with its operator in the early hours of Sunday, according to Indonesia’s search and rescue agency.

It had sailed from Surabaya on the Indonesian island of Java on Saturday and was heading for Banjarmasin, a port city on Borneo.

Rescuers are searching for the remaining passengers and crew.

The ship encountered rough weather, said I Putu Sudayana, head of the local search and rescue office in Banjarmasin.

The ferry’s last known position was in the Java Sea, about 81 nautical miles (150km) from Banjarmasin, the AFP news agency reported.

Rescue ships and a helicopter have been searching the area, where Sudayana said waves as high as 2.5 metres (8.2 feet) have hampered the operation.

“It is extremely risky for vessels. Even our Basarnas vessel, which is 40 metres [131 feet] long, is at great risk,” Sudayana told reporters, referring to the country’s search and rescue agency.

Last month, a fire on a ferry sailing between Bali and Lombok killed one person and left five missing. In July, a ferry carrying more than 70 people sank near Selayar Island, south of Sulawesi.

JAKARTA: Indonesian rescuers launched a search operation Sunday after a passenger ship carrying at least 240 people lost contact in the Java Sea while traveling from East Java to South Kalimantan on Borneo island, officials said.

The Search and Rescue Office in Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan province, said they received a report the Virgo Transport 8 had experienced a communication failure while en route to the city from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city in East Java province.

Initial information indicated the vessel’s last known position was in the Java Sea, about 148 kilometers (92 miles) from a pier in Banjarmasin. The ship’s manifest said it was carrying 241 passengers.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Arianto Ardi, operations chief at Banjarmasin’s rescue agency, confirmed the loss of contact with the vessel and said rescue personnel had been dispatched to the area.

“We have established an operations post at Trisakti,” Arianto said.

Authorities said the ship’s operator reported the incident after receiving information that the vessel had encountered bad weather.

SINGAPORE: Six cargo ships transited the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, Tuesday, compared to nine ships the previous day and an average of about 12 ships over ten days, according to shipping data released today, Wednesday.

These numbers may change, as some ships typically choose not to operate their transponders during the voyage.

Preliminary data from Kpler at 0200 GMT showed that five of the six ships entered the strait while one exited, and the group included a Panamax-sized tanker and a medium-sized tanker.

The US-Israeli war on Iran escalated yesterday, Tuesday, as Houthi militia in Yemen, allied with Tehran, launched attacks on Saudi cities, further involving the kingdom in the conflict.

Simultaneously, US forces targeted several Iranian oil tankers, while Iran struck a US base in Jordan.

Meanwhile, 25 cargo ships transited the Bab El-Mandeb Strait yesterday, Tuesday, with 11 ships entering and 14 exiting the other vital Middle Eastern waterway.

This compares to an average of about 27 ships transiting the Bab El-Mandeb Strait over the past ten days.

Among the ships that transited the Bab El-Mandeb Strait were two Suezmax tankers, eight Aframax tankers, and a Very Large Crude Carrier.

Moscow challenges Norway’s seizure of vessel, the Professor Molchanov, calling it an act of piracy.

Norway has seized a Russian ship in ⁠the Arctic to ⁠enforce a compensation claim by Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz, linked to Russian asset seizures in Crimea.

Norway seized the ship on Wednesday, after Moscow failed to pay Naftogaz $4.22bn plus interest and legal costs to compensate for ⁠assets it seized in ⁠Crimea after a tribunal ruling at The Hague in 2023.

In a post on X, Naftogaz said the seizure made up “part of global efforts to enforce the arbitral award obtained by Naftogaz against the Russian Federation in connection with the unlawful expropriation of their assets in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014”.

The vessel, the Professor Molchanov, was taken off the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard after a 24-hour standoff with the Norwegian Coast Guard, according ⁠to Covington, the US law firm representing Naftogaz.⁠

Russian state news agency TASS quoted a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson as calling the Norwegian action “piracy”.

Alexei Chekunkov, Russia’s ⁠minister for the development of the Russian ⁠Far East and Arctic, ⁠said Moscow would challenge the ruling.

Chekunkov called Norway’s seizure of the Professor Molchanov “another ‌example of Western countries’ legal nihilism and lawlessness,” according to the ‌Interfax ‌news agency.

Naftogaz has been pursuing legal action against Russia since 2016 to seek compensation for the expropriation of its property in Crimea.

“Russia cannot evade responsibility simply by refusing to comply with an international arbitral award,” said Naftogaz Acting CEO Sergii Fedorenko.

“We will continue to pursue Russian assets around the world until the compensation ‌awarded ‌to Naftogaz and other Naftogaz Group companies is paid,” the Ukrainian company said.

Covington, the law firm, said it had been tracking the Professor Molchanov, a Russian-owned vessel that is used for commercial cruises, for months.

The ship was being used for commercial expedition cruises, including to Svalbard, according to the company.

Naftogaz said the passengers on board are being handled by Norwegian authorities.

Search and rescue operations under way as authorities lose contact with 10 crew members after a vessel collision near Istanbul.

Turkiye’s coastguard has launched a search and rescue operation after two Turkish-flagged commercial vessels collided off Istanbul and contact was lost with one vessel and its crew of 10.

The collision took place at 3am (00:00 GMT) in the Marmara Sea a little more than 20 miles (32 kilometres) south of Silivri, a suburb of Turkey’s largest city, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.

Contact was lost with the crew of the Tugberk Imamoglu, flagged to Turkey, after the collision with the Turkish-flagged Alsu, which appeared undamaged, the governor’s office said.

“Numerous naval units from the coast guard’s Marmara and Bosphorus Command and a coast guard helicopter were dispatched to the scene,” the office said.

Aug. 31 (UPI) — A supertanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz struck two sea mines, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Monday, days after the Trump administration said it had cleared the vital transit route of the explosive devices.

According to a statement from the IRGC Navy carried by semi-official Tasnim News Agency, the unidentified tanker struck the mines, caught fire and came to a stop.

The IRGC Navy said the vessel had attempted to pass through an “illegal route south of the Strait of Hormuz” when it came into contact with the mines.

The IRGC Navy once again warns that the fate of ships that violate the security regulations of the Strait of Hormuz will be no different from this,” it said.

“Compliance with the regulations issued by the IRGC Navy for passage through the strait is mandatory.”

The U.S.-Iran war has for months been focused on the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has restricted commercial passage through with the use of mines, drones and artillery since the start of the conflict.

The U.S. military has been fighting to regain freedom of navigation through this chokepoint, and President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that vessels are freely able to transit it despite only 8.3% of the normal daily volume passing in the last 24 hours with hundreds of vessels waiting, according to the independent Hormuz Strait Monitor.

Last week, Trump claimed all mines planted by the IRGC in the strait had been cleared and Iran had been warned that any ship planting new mines would be “destroyed.”

U.S. Central Command Commander Adm. Brad Cooper later in the week echoed Trump, saying, “We have successfully cleared sea mines in the strait’s international shipping lanes.”

Neither claim could be independently verified.

The announcement came hours after U.S. forces said it struck a pair of rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, the first U.S. military action taken against Iran in weeks.

There is a report of a new ship attack in the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting the difficulty of ending hostilities with Iran. The strike came hours after the Trump administration on Monday unleashed the threat of harsh new sanctions to further isolate the Islamic Republic. Though details were sparse, and no deadlines were issued, the goal was to compel the Iranians to return to negotiations by inducing additional economic pain instead of through bombardment. Originally touting the announcement as an “economic D-Day” against Iran, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s lack of firm timelines presented Monday doesn’t seem to match that initial rhetoric.

Monday evening, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center (UKMTO) said it “received a report of an incident 9NM northeast of Ash Shishah, Oman.”

“The Master of an oil tanker reports the vessel has been struck by an unknown projectile causing damage to the engine room and disabling the vessel,” UKMTO reported on X. “Crew are reported safe. Environmental impact is unknown at time of report. Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO. Authorities are investigating.”

UKMTO didn’t assign blame, but it’s obviously extremely likely the attack was carried out by Iran.

Hours before Bessent’s sanctions announcement, the Houthi rebels of Yemen also attacked another Saudi ship in the northern Red Sea. These strikes are a stark reminder that the war launched on Iran by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28 is still sending kinetic shockwaves around the region and roiling the global economy.

At a press conference in Washington, Bessent formally announced the broad outlines of a new list of measures to cut Iran off from global trade. The move comes as the Iranian economy, which was reeling even before the war broke out, continues to suffer after months of war and an ongoing U.S. naval blockade of its ports.

“We are level-setting with every country to tell them our expectations. We know who they are. They know who they are,” Bessent told reporters. “So when the hammer of U.S. Treasury actions falls upon them, they will have no one to blame but themselves.”

Dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast,” the plan calls for every country to “be given a defined timeline to shut down its Iran-related business activity,” Axios noted. “If it fails to do so, the U.S. will impose secondary sanctions.”

As part of this effort, the Treasury Department “issued determinations against five critical sectors––digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping––that the Iranian regime uses to try to prop up its failing economy,” it explained. In addition, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) “sanctioned nearly 60 entities, individuals, and vessels in multiple jurisdictions that enable the Iranian regime’s recklessness, including illicit nuclear and missile technology procurement, cyber operations, and oil‑revenue generation networks.”

OFAC also “suspended several general licenses that previously authorized certain remittance payments to Iran and Iranian access to the U.S. cultural and academic system,” Treasury noted. “OFAC issued additional guidance on the sanctions risks of bowing to Iranian demands related to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Asked by a reporter what actions the U.S. might take against China, Bessent hinted that Beijing is not exempt. China has been a major importer of Iranian oil and its banks have helped support Tehran’s economy.

“We want to make clear here today that no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions,” Bessent responded. “That if they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money, into repression, they will be targeted.”

BIG: Bessent on China and Iran:

We want to make clear here today that no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.

That if they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money, into repression, they will be targeted. pic.twitter.com/hVuFLlgaZa

— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 24, 2026

Bessent did not offer any further specifics. He was equally vague about any timelines for this effort.

“We are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior,” Bessent told reporters. “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?”

For their part, the Iranians dismissed Bessent’s plan and promised their own harsh response to the new sanctions.

“Americans know that no one buys their bombast; the United States is not in an economic position to further restrict its relations with other countries,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, stated on X. “Iran’s trading partners, both in the media and through messages sent to us, have made it clear that they don’t take these statements into account anywhere.”

آمریکایی‌ها می‌دانند که کسی گُنده‌لافی‌های آنها را باور نمی‌کند؛ آمریکا از لحاظ اقتصادی در شرایطی نیست که بخواهد روابط خود با دیگر کشورها را محدودتر از این کند.
شرکای تجاری ایران، هم در رسانه‌ها و هم با ارسال پیام‌ به ما اعلام کرده‌اند که این اظهارات را به هیچ جا حساب نمی‌کنند.

— محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf (@mb_ghalibaf) August 24, 2026

“Any escalation of this situation will undoubtedly bring about consequences,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said. “Our hands are not tied.”

Baghaei did not offer specifics, but Iran still possesses missiles and drones that it can use to strike U.S. and allied interests in the region. In addition, Tehran still maintains a large degree of control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Even the threat of additional attacks could affect the flow of oil through the strategic chokepoint.

In addition, on Saturday, Mohsen Rezaei, the head of Iran’s national security council, threatened to attack U.S. businesses, The Telegraph reported. He also warned allies of the U.S. that they would be considered enemies, and their interests harmed if they joined Trump’s economic warfare. Cyberattacks on U.S. water systems that officials suspect may be linked to Iran-backed hackers have been reported in at least a dozen states, CBS News reported earlier this month. Iranian-linked hackers are also suspected of forcing a small British power generator offline for four days last month. Aside from that, there are still many U.S. business interests in the Middle East, and especially energy firms, with major facilities right across the Persian Gulf.

While the U.S. and Iran trade threats, the Houthis carried out a fresh strike on Saudi shipping as we noted earlier in this piece.

The Iranian-backed group claimed it hit the oil tanker Amzan off the coast of Yanbu. That’s the kingdom’s key port on the northern Red Sea, about 600 miles north of Houthi territory.

🔺Ansarallah says it struck the Saudi oil tanker Amzan with a ballistic missile off Yanbu in the northern Red Sea, declaring the attack part of its maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia and its “blockade for blockade” campaign.

Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the missile hit… pic.twitter.com/PS6vna9XA2

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 24, 2026

Both the UKMTO and the Ambrey maritime security company confirmed the attack, which took place about 64 nm west of Yanbu, Ambrey noted.

After the vessel was hit, “the Egyptian Navy was reported to have responded and was transiting to the area of interest to conduct a rescue operation,” Ambrey stated. “At the time of the attack, the vessel was not transmitting its AIS signal. Its previous AIS transmission was recorded at 02:33 UTC on 8 August.”

The ship attack was the latest Houthi strike against the Saudis. The Yemen-based group had already struck Saudi ships in the southern part of that body of water and refineries along the northern portion after imposing a blockade on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait (BAM), leading several oil tankers in the Red Sea to avoid that route in favor of the Suez Canal. The expansion of the Houthi campaign against Saudi shipping began earlier this month with an attack off the port of Yanbu on the NCC Wafa, a Saudi oil tanker.

Though both the Strait of Hormuz and the BAM remain under pressure, ship traffic ticked upwards in both chokepoints last week, according to the Kpler global trade intelligence firm. Those numbers alone, however, don’t paint the full picture, Kpler cautioned.

“Traffic edged higher through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb last week, but headline volumes obscure contrasting risk signals,” Kpler cautioned on X. “Hormuz crossings rose 2.5% to 121, while laden transits fell 27% and sanctioned crossings increased from 9 to 16. Use of Iran’s unilateral routing scheme also climbed to 46.3% of crossings.”

“Bab el-Mandeb traffic rose 3.1% to 269 crossings,” the firm added. “Dark transits declined, but sanctioned and shadow fleet crossings remained broadly flat at 74 combined. The data suggest commercial substance is weakening at Hormuz even as overall traffic holds up, while Bab el-Mandeb remains resilient despite an active threat environment.”

Hormuz traffic masks rising risk

Traffic edged higher through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb last week, but headline volumes obscure contrasting risk signals.
Hormuz crossings rose 2.5% to 121, while laden transits fell 27% and sanctioned crossings increased from 9 to… pic.twitter.com/iHKsCigEJL

— Kpler (@Kpler) August 24, 2026

While the U.S. is threatening further moves to hurt the Iranian economy, doing so has inherent risks. For decades, Iran has weathered sanctions and isolation and yet the regime has persevered. It withstood mass protests against it earlier this year with bloody crackdowns that played a big role in moving U.S. President Donald Trump to take military action.

Iran continues to wield the cudgel of threatening the U.S. by resuming attacks on its assets in the region as well as against allies. In July, Tehran took rare initiative with a surprise attack on U.S. forces in Jordan, a contrast to its previous pattern of responding to strikes.

For the U.S., continued conflict risks further expenditure of its stocks of high-end offensive and defensive weapons and strain on its troops and equipment. It would also add new economic pressure. To help mitigate gasoline prices that shot up during the war, the Trump administration began releasing a large amount of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. That move set off a cascade of downstream effects.

“Stocks of crude ​oil in the ‌U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) ​fell ​by about 3.7 million ⁠barrels ​to 289.7 million ​barrels last week, the lowest ​level since ​November 1982,” Reuters reported, citing data from the Department of Energy. “The ​drawdowns ​are ⁠part of a ​U.S. agreement ​to ⁠release 172 million barrels ⁠from ​the ​facility.”

Barchart, the global market data and technology firm, offered a stark assessment of the state of the SPR.

“The U.S. has just 41 days of crude oil inventory left, the lowest level in half a century,” Barchart noted on X.

While that doesn’t mean gas pumps in the U.S. are about to shut down, the alarm bells are ringing.

Earlier this month, the president said his new strategy was to be “low-keying it” in Iran, a suggestion wants to avoid further major military action. However, in addition to global and domestic economic pressure, there are other factors weighing on Trump as he decides what to do next with regard to Iran.

The war is unpopular and the midterm elections are fast approaching. The White House and Republican leadership remain keenly aware that the conflict dragging on until November won’t help the party’s bid to hold onto control of both the Senate and the House.

We will have to see if the Treasury’s plan is actually enacted and what Iran’s response will be. As it sits now, the administration is clearly hoping the threat of such economic isolation will press them to the negotiating table, but Iran has shown no signs yet that it will.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com