Ocean Oct 16, 2026 · 8 min read

Hormuz attacks reach the container feeders as Iran says the strait is closed

A Gulf feeder sank with boxes aboard. Check whose ship your cargo is on. The 2,824-TEU feeder GFS Pride was hit off Oman in the Strait of Hormuz on 13 October and sank. All 21 crew got off safely. In our view the war has now reached the small ships that carry Gulf containers. Mainline carriers stopped sending their own ships through the strait. That does not mean your cargo stays out of it. Analyst Lars Jensen says Maersk, ONE, PIL and OOCL showed active schedules on some of the ships that were hit. Our call: no mainline service goes back through Hormuz before 31 December.

The Hormuz war has reached the feeders, and your mainline booking may be riding on one On Tuesday 13 October a small container ship called GFS Pride was hit by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, about a mile off Oman. It caught fire and sank. The ship could carry 2,824 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard measure of container capacity). All 21 crew were evacuated and no injuries were reported, according to Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority, as reported by gCaptain.
The next day its sister ship, GFS Giselle, was hit too. The 4,350-TEU vessel took damage to its hull but reached a safe anchorage under its own power. All 22 crew were reported safe, The Loadstar said.
Our view: this is the week the Hormuz war stopped being mainly a tanker story and became a container story. Gulf box cargo has relied on feeders since the big lines pulled out of the strait. Feeders are the small ships that shuttle containers between big hub ports and smaller ones. Those ships are now in the line of fire. And the cargo on them is often booked through the same mainline carriers that say they have stopped going through Hormuz.

What happened this week

The attacks have come thick and fast. FreightWaves reported on 16 October that at least 10 vessels had been attacked in or near the strait since Sunday 11 October. It wrote: “Six vessels were struck on Sunday, including five tankers and one container ship.” That was the highest one-day total since the US-Iran war began in February.
UKMTO (UK Maritime Trade Operations, the Royal Navy office that logs attacks on merchant ships) recorded 12 vessels reporting attacks between 5 and 11 October. FreightWaves said that was the largest weekly total of the war. gCaptain reported that UKMTO then issued four more warnings for 13 October, covering three containerships and one tanker.
GFS Pride was not the only feeder hit. FreightWaves reported that “the 2,500-TEU DP World Kaveri operated by a unit of Dubai’s DP World” was also struck, along with another feeder.
Both GFS ships belong to Global Feeder Shipping. According to The Loadstar, Abu Dhabi’s AD Ports owns 81% of that company. GFS Pride ran a Khor Fakkan–Fujairah–Karachi service. GFS Giselle runs Fujairah–Khor Fakkan–Nhava Sheva. Both were due in Khor Fakkan that week.
Sinkings of large ships have been rare in this war. Accounts differ on the exact count. The Loadstar and Container News, citing International Maritime Organization data, call GFS Pride the second vessel lost since the war began on 28 February. gCaptain counts it as the second large ocean-going ship lost after the Safeen Prestige. Reuters, carried by gCaptain, reported that the bulk carrier Cape Dao, first hit on 23 September, was also sinking this week. Whatever the tally, a laden container ship has now gone to the bottom.
Who fired is disputed. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said a containership carrying more than 2,500 boxes hit a mine on what it called an “unauthorised and dangerous” route, The Loadstar reported. Singapore’s maritime authority confirmed an attack, and Reuters reported a projectile. Singapore called the strikes “unprovoked, unjustifiable, and a breach of international law,” gCaptain reported.

Two sides, two claims of control

On 13 October, the day GFS Pride was hit, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said: “American forces and regional partners clearly control the Strait of Hormuz.” It said US forces had helped Gulf partners move “more than 19 million barrels of crude oil” through the strait the previous day. gCaptain’s Mike Schuler wrote that the attacks highlight “the continuing gap between military control of the waterway and the ability to ensure safe passage.”
Iran says the opposite. On 15 October Iran’s state broadcaster PressTV quoted Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, the army’s chief of staff: “The Strait of Hormuz is closed.” He added: “Any passage must be coordinated. Otherwise, you will see what happens in the news.” PressTV also carried an IRGC Navy statement from 12 October warning that cooperation with US forces “in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf will face a decisive response.” These are claims by Iranian state media, not independent facts. But they tell you what Tehran wants shipowners to hear.
In our view, this leaves owners and insurers with no safe choice. Take US protection and Iran says you are a target. Coordinate with Tehran and you may breach sanctions. Until one side’s claim stops being contested, we do not see how a mainline carrier can justify putting a large ship back into the strait.
Traffic shows the hesitation. Kpler, a ship-tracking firm, counted 131 crossings in the week ended 14 October, down from 176 the week before, FreightWaves reported. Kpler cautioned that the fall was not due to the attacks alone. It estimated that 12.6 million barrels of crude a day moved through the strait on 13 October, against about 15 million at the end of September. Before the war, gCaptain notes, “roughly 130 to 140 vessels typically passed through the strait each day.”

Why your mainline booking may be on a feeder

This is the part forwarders need to read twice. When the war started, the big lines pulled back fast. Breakbulk News reported on 2 March that Maersk and MSC had “joined Hapag Lloyd and CMA CGM in halting operations through the strait.” Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM told customers to expect “additional fees ranging from $1,500 per TEU to $4,000 for reefer units” on Middle East cargo.
But Gulf cargo did not stop. Much of it moved to hubs outside the strait, such as Khor Fakkan and Fujairah, and then went on by feeder or by truck. Feeders go through the strait so mainline ships do not have to.
Analyst Lars Jensen suggested that other carriers may have bought feeder slots on the ships that were hit, FreightWaves reported. He noted that Maersk, Ocean Network Express, PIL and OOCL showed active schedules for some of these vessels. Buying slots means renting space on another company’s ship. So a shipper who booked with one of those lines may have had boxes on a ship that sank or was damaged. We cannot confirm which boxes were aboard. But the link between mainline bookings and feeder risk is now clear.
The insurance point is just as important. FreightWaves reported analysts’ warning that “war insurance can be cancelled on short notice if cargo moves on a vessel not owned by the carrier” named on the bill of lading. The bill of lading is the contract and receipt for the cargo. If the vessel that actually carries your box is not the one your cover assumes, you may have less protection than you think.
There is also general average to think about. General average is an old maritime rule: when a ship is saved at a cost, every cargo owner on board shares that cost in proportion to their cargo’s value. A damaged ship like GFS Giselle that reaches anchorage is the kind of case where that rule can come into play. Shippers without proper cargo insurance can be asked for a cash guarantee before their boxes are released.

What this means for forwarders now

Our read for forwarders working the Gulf:

Ask the carrier which vessel will carry the final leg into or out of the Upper Gulf. “Carrier X” on the booking is not the same as “Carrier X’s ship”.

Read the war-risk clauses in your cargo cover. Check whether they still apply when cargo moves on a third-party feeder through Hormuz.

Tell shippers in writing about general average and salvage risk. Make sure their cover will post a guarantee if one is declared.

Price in delay. With crossings at 131 a week, any further attack can stop feeder rotations for days.

Look at routes that avoid the strait. Khor Fakkan, Fujairah and Sohar sit outside it, and onward trucking or rail to inland Gulf points avoids the water entirely. It costs more, but it avoids the cargo-loss risk.

This matters well beyond Dubai. Cargo for Dammam, Kuwait, Umm Qasr and Qatar mostly has to cross the strait or go overland. In March, AGBI reported John Manners-Bell of Transport Intelligence saying “Many service providers will be looking to use alternative air and sea hubs”. Seven months later, the hubs outside the strait look less like a workaround and more like the main route.

What we expect next

Our prediction: no mainline container service will resume regular transits of the Strait of Hormuz before 31 December 2026. We also expect Gulf war-risk surcharges to stay in place and not fall before the end of the year.
We go further. Within six weeks, we expect at least one of the carriers Jensen named to either stop selling through bookings that rely on third-party feeders across the strait, or to add a separate surcharge or clause for them. Once a laden feeder sinks, the industry stops treating feeder risk as somebody else’s problem.
If we are wrong, it will be because the attacks stop and the two sides’ claims of control settle into something insurers can price. Nothing in this week’s statements from Washington or Tehran points that way.

Sources