On Tuesday of this week, the U.S. Pentagon announced that a U.S. submarine has sunk a Iranian destroyer in the Indian Ocean just south of Sri Lanka as part of the war against Iran President Trump started last Saturday.
It is somewhat ironic that Cruising Compass published a guide to transiting the Red Sea last Thursday, the day before the Middle East blew up, and reported that as many as 75 cruising boats planned to sail north to the Suez Canal this spring. I suspect that many of those skippers and crews are having second thoughts about their plans right now.
The Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden , the Red Sea and the Eastern Med are full of American warships and along all those coasts are hostile forces like the Huthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and of course the Iranians whose missiles can reach most of the region. Any one of these groups could see a cruising boat as a promising hostage target or just a plain target.
On Wednesday, we checked the Noonsite Red Sea Facebook Group report on noonsite.com but there were as yet no updates since the Iran war is only five days old. Click here to check for new news.
With war activity near Sri Lanka, a favorite stop for boats heading to the Red Sea, and throughout the Arabian Peninsula, those planning to sail west to the Med and Atlantic from Thailand will be seriously considering going by way of South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope instead. Or they may choose to spend another year in Asia as many did during the height of the piracy troubles off Somalia a decade ago.
But, the Middle East is not the only danger zone for cruisers. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian navel vessels, both surface ships and submarines, have been aggressively displaying their might in the Baltic and North Seas. While the shooting war is miles inland, the Russian activity has created serious tensions and potential threats for mariners from Nordic and Northern European countries. Civilian cruisers have been warned to beware.
One of the threats in both war zones is the unreliability of GPS. In the past we have reported on incidents of Russia jamming GPS in the Baltic and it does not take a leap of imagination to expect similar disruptions around Arabia and the Red Sea.
This week Yachting World published a thoughtful article on cruising the Baltic in the time of war by former editor in chief Elaine Bunting. It’s worth reading.
