Monday 4 July 2022 · below the Index · spike
Cargo ship stranded off Sydney coast
A cargo ship became stranded without power off the coast of Sydney, Australia during heavy storms and flooding in early July 2022. The vessel, with 21 crew members on board, drifted near Garie Beach in rough seas with 8-meter swells. Rescue operations were launched to tow the ship away from rocks, with concerns raised about potential environmental disaster from fuel leakage.
Peak 68.0 on Monday 4 July 2022. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Social-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 66% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Friday 22 April 2022.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Readers here means readers of the Wikipedia article on each vessel type — the same source as the Research signal, not news coverage — so an incident can dominate the news without moving this panel. 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: human drama. Trade press was 2% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 58% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 53% negative overall.
Each article is scored on a five-step scale from strongly negative to strongly positive; the bar is the share of coverage at each step.
Sample of the headlines
- Fuel from cargo ship stranded off Sydney coast could cause environmental disaster, experts saytheguardian.com · 2022-07-04
- Rescuers try to save stranded cargo ship near Sydneybbc.co.uk · 2022-07-04
- Australia live news: major rescue operation for cargo ship stranded in rough seas near Sydney; more evacuation orders amid NSW floodsmsn.com · 2022-07-04
- Sydney floods: Cargo ship stranded without power off Sydney's south9news.com.au · 2022-07-04
- Wild Sydney weather: Hong Kong-registered cargo ship Portland Bay stranded at sea after Port Kembla deliveryafr.com · 2022-07-04
- Heavy Storms Leave at Least 21 People Stranded on Cargo Ship Near Sydneysputniknews.com · 2022-07-04
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
- Registered in a single underlying series only — one vessel-type article, news term or social query — and never moved the Index itself.
- The coverage panels count only articles matched to this incident specifically.
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Cargo ship stranded off Sydney coast, peak 68.0 on 4 July 2022. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2022-cargo-ship-stranded-off-sydney-coast/