Black Day in the Strait: Rockets, Fire, and a Lost Shipmate on the Mombasa and Bahia

Listen up, lads. If you’re transiting the Strait of Hormuz, keep your eyes on the horizon and your lifejackets close. It’s getting damn ugly out here, and the sea is bleeding.

Word just came down from the UAE MoD, but we already heard the chatter over the VHF. Two of our own oil-shuttle tankers got hammered by Iranian cruise missiles while transiting the southern Omani lanes. They hit the VLCC Mombasa B (IMO 9739501) and the VLCC Al Bahyah (IMO 9937799)—though some are saying it might've been the LNG carrier Al Bahiya. Doesn't matter which hull it was; it’s steel and flesh out there.

They took direct missile hits right in Omani waters, where we thought we had some overwatch from the US. Eight brothers of the sea are down, four of them in real bad shape, airlifted out. But the heaviest blow: we lost a mate. An Indian national sailing on the Mombasa B didn't make his next watch. He was killed in the strike. Sailor’s rest to him, and God help his family back home. No merchant mariner signs up to be target practice for cruise missiles.

Fires broke out on both vessels immediately after the impact. Can you imagine the hell of a missile tearing through a tanker hull, oil or gas, with flames roaring under your feet? But the crews did what sailors do: they stood their ground, fought the blazes, and got them under control. True professional mariners, saving their vessels under fire.

Tehran’s got a blockade on, and they're trying to choke the Strait. They don't want us using the Omani lane, which the UAE’s been running as a shuttle pipeline to move crude out to Khor Fakkan in the Gulf of Oman. Both ships went 'dark'—killed their AIS transponders—sometime last week, trying to slip through like ghosts. But ghosts don't stop radar, and now we see the price.

Stay safe out there, brothers. Keep the watch tight. Keep your heads down.