CENTCOM (United States Central Command), the American military command covering the Middle East, posted at 17:23 UTC on Thursday 6 August that since its blockade of Iranian ports resumed on Tuesday 14 July it has redirected 49 commercial vessels, disabled two and boarded two123. The command has published no vessel names, flags or cargoes.
The count itself, and the presidential promise of a reopening that followed it, already sit on this record. Two campaigns now sit close enough to compare by shape rather than size. Across roughly 24 days, 49 redirections works out at about two ships turned around a day, and the April to June operation ran at much the same daily tempo. The two campaigns part company in the kinetic column. That earlier operation disabled roughly one vessel for every 15 it redirected. This one has disabled one for every 25, and the boarding figure has not moved since it was first disclosed.
So comparable numbers of merchant ships are being turned around each day at a little over half the force per hull. Redirecting a vessel costs its charterer a delay and its owner some fuel. Disabling one costs a hull, a crew and an incident no negotiation easily survives. The current mix therefore keeps the pressure inside charterparty economics, the contract between shipowner and cargo hirer, rather than inside hull losses. That is a choice about method, not a limit of capability, and every day the ratio holds is a day Washington can release the pressure with a signature instead of a settlement.
