Monday 19 October 2020 · below the Index · spike
Pirates board tanker off Togo coast
A chemical tanker was boarded by pirates off the coast of Togo on October 19, 2020, with seafarers seized during the attack. The incident occurred in the Gulf of Guinea region.
Peak 53.2 on Monday 19 October 2020. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Mixed-led, both over the window and on the peak day. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 38% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Tuesday 29 September 2020.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 43% of in-scope coverage. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 57% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 14% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- Seafarers seized as pirates board Golar LNG carrier and Parakou tankertradewindsnews.com · 2020-10-19
- Parakou Shipping tanker boarded by pirates off Togosplash247.com · 2020-10-19
- Chemical tanker MT PTI Nile boarded offshore Lomemsn.com · 2020-10-18
- Hong Kong Oil Tanker Attacked Off Togo Coast – Maritime Security Reviewmarsecreview.com · 2020-10-19
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- tier C: only a Wikipedia article, GDELT sub-vocabulary term, or social per-term query fired — not yet confirmed as a real maritime incident (Phase C naming/is_maritime_incident does that).
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
- coverage filtered to articles matching this incident specifically (44/44 kept) — see coverage.filter.terms
- decay half-life: >30 days (still elevated at window end)
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Pirates board tanker off Togo coast, peak 53.2 on 19 October 2020. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2020-pirates-board-tanker-off-togo-coast/