When you have to ask Wikipedia where on earth the country purporting to be providing its flag to a VLCC might be situated, there is clearly something wrong with something other than your knowledge of geography.
It is happening far too often these days, with these ridiculous brass plate operations based in Gulf cities offering a sort of “Registries R-Us” service that will provide complete documentation for ships, no questions asked, at the drop of a hat.
We have flags that, in reality, are figments of some mad vexillologist’s imagination; ports of registry that fail to appear in large gazetteers; massive ships carrying pollutant cargoes that the country of alleged registry fails to even recognise; names and identities of ships changing faster than a team of ABs on stages can repaint them; and electronic identification, if available, highly suspect.
That’s life in the "dark fleet," circa 2025, and the prospects are very dark.
Already blamed for careless anchor work in the vicinity of undersea cables and pipelines, it is now suggested that units of the sanctioned fleet are operating as auxiliary drone carriers, following the recent incursions into airspace over Denmark, Norway and the Baltic states.
We are told by senior military analysts that it is all part of Putin’s “hybrid warfare,” designed to probe, annoy and confuse his enemies, pushing them harder and challenging them to blink first.
The West, urged to spend more on ramping up its defences after decades of luxuriating under America’s comforting wings, is told to confront the probability of a full-scale war in the medium to short term, started, perhaps, by a failure of somebody, with his finger on a trigger, to blink.
The shipping industry is also discovering its vulnerabilities to new kinds of attack in the shape of all sorts of electronic interference.
Meanwhile, these ships, with their changing names and flags, their sanctioned cargoes, and their extremely dubious ownership are deteriorating, missing scheduled drydocking, carrying insurance that may effectively be non-existent, and registering every sort of increased risk.
When you think that just a few years ago, the tanker sector had a reputation for operational excellence second to none, it is very depressing to think of this blot on the shipping industry’s good name.
And the dark fleet is just one facet of the geopolitical clouds that are building up in the maritime world. Who on earth would have thought that a gang of rebel tribesmen would have had the ability to effectively shut off one of the world’s great maritime arteries, attacking, capturing, and sinking passing merchant vessels on their entirely lawful voyages, killing and injuring their crews?
Two years after their alignment with Hamas, their attacks persist, the pirates continuously armed by their Iranian paymasters.
The shipping industry, carrying on its essential task of feeding and fuelling the world, is also discovering its vulnerabilities to new kinds of attack in the shape of all sorts of electronic interference.
It is ironic that we are being simultaneously urged to embrace a new digital age when in certain important parts of the world, its cyber security is being seriously challenged with jamming and spoofing of its systems becoming almost normalised.
While it is possible for navigators to switch to alternative means, one needs to remember the plethora of timing-related equipment aboard the well-found ship. It seems quite recently, although it was more than ten years ago, that there were trials that amply demonstrated the chaos such interference could cause to even a ship that was anticipating an attack.
Even those manning the ships of the dark fleet may be unaware of the nature of the business they are in and may well end up as collateral damage when it all ends up badly.
Cheap drones, explosive remote-controlled boats, pirates equipped with small-arms and aluminium boarding ladders, hackers and spoofers may not be even remotely sophisticated, but to an undefended commercial vessel, all represent very real hazards.
As always, it is the “poor bloody infantry” in the seafarers who will be the perpetual victims in these increasingly dark days. Responsible ship operators do not willingly send their crews into harm's way, and it is a signal of this that so many elect to divert ships around the Cape of Good Hope, and continue to do so.
Even those manning the ships of the dark fleet may be unaware, when they sign on, of the nature of the business they are in and may well end up as collateral damage when it all ends up badly.
None of it gets any better. There are dangerous confrontations with Russian Navy warships in the Danish straits. We have not even mentioned the angry posturing in the South China Sea, the “war” against the drug cartels that drag in merchant shipping as unwilling combatants, and the upsurge in piracy in Southeast Asian wars.
“Keep calm and carry on” – it seems inadequate advice, but it is all that is on offer.