The Strait of Hormuz is presented as both a major maritime chokepoint and a changing measure of the global crisis. Initially singled out as a route with no reported accidents, it later becomes the scene of a seven-vessel collision in which marine growth and faulty instrument readings help turn ordinary navigation into disaster.

A chokepoint in a connected world

Shipping routes are among the infrastructures on which global movement depends, but their importance is most visible when they fail. During the crisis briefing, the Strait of Hormuz is named among the world’s busiest shipping lanes affected by a proliferation of accidents. Of the world’s two hundred main chokepoints, roughly half have experienced trouble; the Strait of Gibraltar, Strait of Malacca, and English Channel are also specifically identified. The Strait of Hormuz is discussed alongside the Gulf of Suez, which Judith Li recognizes as a second major Arab shipping hub. Together, these reports shift the strait from a point on a shipping map to part of a network of vulnerable routes.

From apparent exception to collision site

Earlier, Jack Vanderbilt invokes the absence of accidents or collisions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Suez as evidence for his theory that the wider disasters are designed to damage the European oil industry while sparing Arab oil and gas. Sigur Johanson rejects Vanderbilt’s reasoning, calling him crazy and challenging the logic of a supposed campaign that also annihilates people who might otherwise buy those resources. The apparent safety of the strait is therefore part of a contested interpretation, not a settled explanation of events.

Later reports overturn that picture. Vanderbilt describes a crash in the Strait of Hormuz involving seven vessels, at least two of which had lost reliable awareness of where they were going. The transition from a route cited for its lack of collisions to one caught in a major pile-up gives the crisis a concrete escalation: the strait’s earlier exemption does not last.

How the ships lose their bearings

The collision grows out of failures in equipment that crews depend on to navigate, especially when darkness, fog, or rough water obscures the surroundings. A ship’s radar uses information about its course and speed to assess collision risks and suggest alternative routes. Its speed log measures the vessel’s speed through the water, while the depth sounder reports the water beneath the keel. In the collision account, marine life clinging to one vessel’s speed log makes the instrument report that the ship is stationary; the radar consequently fails to register the collision danger. On another vessel, the depth sounder indicates that the water is becoming shallower even though there is ample depth. The crew manoeuvres to avoid what it believes is a grounding, and the vessel strikes others. In darkness, additional ships join the collision.

The account stresses how dependent crews are on these readings: for much of the time, visibility is too poor to provide a dependable check. Li observes that a large object blocking a depth sounder for long enough could be mistaken for solid ground. Reports that whales were swimming beneath boats before some crashes add to the sense of an emerging pattern, but they are presented as claims rather than established causes of this particular collision.

Narrative significance

The Strait of Hormuz connects the novel’s large-scale crisis to a precise failure pathway: marine life fouls a sensor, the sensor misleads a ship’s systems, and a mistaken manoeuvre puts multiple vessels into collision. The strait’s changing status also complicates Vanderbilt’s earlier theory. What first appeared to be a meaningful absence of accidents gives way to direct evidence of disruption across the world’s shipping lanes. The location thus marks not a stable safe passage but the spread of maritime danger into routes whose apparent reliability depends on instruments, visibility, and vulnerable contact with the sea.