May 2026
In May 2026, six of the maritime industry’s leading organisations — ICS, BIMCO, INTERCARGO, INTERTANKO, IMCA, and OCIMF — jointly published 22 pages of Industry Guidance on the Safe Management of Vessel Transit through the Strait of Hormuz. The document states it “complements BMP MS by providing guidance to vessel owners and operators” and is “intended to support voyage-specific threat and risk assessment, facilitating safe shipboard and office planning.”
Importantly, the guidance covers transits into, within, or out of the Gulf region — it applies to a ship approaching from the Indian Ocean and needing to enter the Gulf, and equally to a ship already alongside in Ras Tanura, Kharg Island, or Jebel Ali that needs to leave. The decision framework is the same in both directions.
This is the first unified industry effort to address what is arguably the most complex maritime security transit environment in decades. The question worth asking is whether it delivers enough practical support to the two people who actually carry the decision — the Master on the bridge and the DPA in the office.
I read all 22 pages. Here is what works, what is missing, and where the hard decisions still sit.
The Structure
The guidance covers five main areas: guiding principles, the current operating context in the Strait, waiting and anchoring position considerations, recommended planning considerations across threat, commercial, technical, crewing, and passage planning areas, and — the core of the document — a structured decision aid with a risk assessment framework.
It is designed as a companion to BMP-MS, not a replacement. BMP-MS handles the broad maritime security picture. This guidance zooms in on the tactical and operational decisions specific to Hormuz.
What Works Well
The decision framework. The five-box matrix — Threat Picture, Navigation Picture, Vessel Readiness, Crew and Security Posture, and Shore Support — is structured as genuine decision support. It gives paired columns: “Transit may be considered where…” and “Deferment should be considered where…” This framing is useful because it does not pretend to be a binary go/no-go. It flags the specific conditions under which deferral is the prudent option.
The Shore Support row is particularly noteworthy for the DPA. It says: Transit may be considered where office support, insurance confirmation, and emergency escalation routes are confirmed. Deferment should be considered where shore-side decision support or insurance position remains unclear. That is a powerful anchor for a DPA pushing back on commercial pressure — in either direction of transit.
The congestion threshold. The guidance defines extreme congestion mode as more than 60 AIS or radar targets within 12 nautical miles. The pre-entry checklist is refreshingly direct — “Is traffic stabilised? Is CPA manageable? Is the radar picture clean? Is the crew ready?” — with the instruction that if any answer is no, the vessel should wait. This is the kind of guidance a bridge team can use in real time.
The GNSS failure bridge card. Annex I provides a quick-reference card that distinguishes jamming from spoofing diagnostically. Jamming: sudden total loss across multiple receivers. Spoofing: signal appears valid but position or track drifts. The distinction matters because the wrong response — cycling GNSS power during a spoofing incident — can make things worse. The card gives step-by-step actions with concrete fix intervals and cross-check methods using radar, visual bearings, and echo sounder.
The threat catalogue is honest. The matrix in Appendix A rates missile and drone attack, naval mines, GNSS jamming, AIS overload, close-quarters collision, erratic manoeuvring, and forced CPA reduction all as Extreme risk. That is not hyperbole — it is a factual description of the current environment. A DPA reviewing this before approving a transit must accept that multiple Extreme-rated hazards coexist.
Crew fatigue is taken seriously. The guidance treats fatigue, stress, and psychological conditions explicitly as risk multipliers. It recommends the Master be periodically relieved by a qualified senior deck officer during the transit and advises disembarking non-essential personnel beforehand. These are practical, actionable recommendations that reflect real operational conditions.
What Is Missing
Insurance is flagged but not explained. The guidance mentions insurance in several places — Section 5.1 instructs operators to confirm war-risk cover, applicable listed areas, additional premium requirements, and underwriter conditions. The decision framework’s Shore Support row makes insurance confirmation a condition for proceeding. Appendix B includes it in the pre-transit checklist. But the guidance never answers the natural follow-up question: what does adequate war-risk cover look like for a Hormuz transit? Is standard hull cover sufficient, or are specific war-risk endorsements needed? For a Master or DPA — particularly one whose company does not regularly operate in the region — the instruction to “confirm insurance cover” is correct but does not give enough context to know whether the cover they confirm is adequate.
Commercial pressure is not addressed. Every Master and every DPA knows that the hardest part of the transit decision is often not the threat picture but the commercial pressure. The cargo is booked. The laycan is tight. The charterer is calling. The guidance is silent on how to manage that tension. There is no advice on documenting an overridden risk assessment, no language for proceeding under protest, and no escalation pathway for when commercial and safety considerations conflict. A practical appendix on this — even a short one — would be of real value.
Passenger vessels and special-risk tonnage are not differentiated. The guidance mentions passenger vessels operating without passengers (in layup or repositioning) but says nothing about a fully loaded passenger ship with passengers on board. Gas carriers and LNG tankers — where a single missile strike has catastrophic consequences — are treated under the same generic risk framework as a standard bulk carrier. The risk profile is not the same, and the guidance does not distinguish.
Risk matrix calibration is left to the user. The 5×5 likelihood-and-consequence matrix is provided as framework, but the scoring thresholds are left to the company. What constitutes Likelihood 4 in the Hormuz context? A company with no prior experience in this environment may struggle to calibrate consistently. Some worked examples or reference scenarios would help.
The Things That Deserve More Credit
The guidance does not strip the Master of authority — it reinforces it. SOLAS Chapter IX and the ISM Code already give the Master overriding authority. The guidance restates this clearly in Section 2: “The safety of life, safe navigation and protection of environment remain the primary considerations, with Masters having overriding authority.” The decision framework gives the Master a structured way to exercise that authority. It does not replace his judgement — it supports it.
The dual-direction scope is correct. A ship that entered the Gulf weeks ago when conditions were quiet may now need to leave during an active escalation. That vessel has the same exposure and the same decision to make. The guidance covers this correctly — the decision aid applies regardless of whether the vessel is entering or departing.
The AIS guidance is handled better than I first thought. The document acknowledges the targeting risk of broadcasting AIS, the SOLAS obligation to keep it on, and the Master’s discretion to decide. It then provides a practical workaround — inform UKMTO and naval authorities every two hours if AIS is switched off. This is the real-world balance.
So Does It Help?
For the Master: Yes. He already holds the authority. The guidance gives him a defensible framework to use it. The decision aid, the congestion threshold, and the GNSS bridge card are all tools he can point to when explaining his decision — whether that decision is to proceed, defer, or refuse.
For the DPA: Yes, with one reservation. The Shore Support row in the decision aid is a strong tool — it makes insurance confirmation and clear escalation routes a precondition. The risk matrix provides a defensible structure. But if the commercial pressure to proceed is coming from within the DPA’s own company — from chartering, from operations, from the CEO — the guidance does not help the DPA push back at the right level. The “three lines of defence” model works only if the DPA has a threshold to point to. This guidance still leaves that threshold for him to set alone.
For the crew: The guidance addresses their fatigue and welfare. But a seafarer asked to transit waters where missile attacks are rated as Extreme — in either direction — faces a question that goes beyond rest hours. The guidance does not address the right of individual crew members to refuse to enter or remain in a declared high-risk area. That is a separate question, governed by flag state regulations and employment contracts, and it may be outside the scope of a navigation and security guidance document. But it is worth noting that the industry organisations that produced this guidance also have a role in the seafarer welfare discussion, and the two documents have not been connected.
What Could Come Next
This is version one of what should be an evolving document. The gaps are addressable:
- A practical appendix on managing commercial pressure and documenting an override
- Specific risk guidance for passenger vessels, gas carriers, and other high-consequence tonnage
- Worked examples for the risk matrix to help consistent calibration
- A clearer reference to flag state and employment frameworks governing seafarer rights in high-risk areas — even if only a cross-reference to an existing ITF or IMEC resource
This review is offered from the perspective of a practising Master Mariner. The author has no affiliation with the sponsoring organisations. The full guidance document is available at ics-shipping.org and through the member websites of the sponsoring organisations.