Tuesday 12 December 2023 · moved the Index · plateau
Carriers quit the Red Sea
In mid-December 2023 Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a series of missile and drone attacks on container ships and tankers transiting the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, hitting a Norwegian-flagged tanker and several cargo vessels. Within days Maersk, BP and other major operators suspended or rerouted traffic away from the region.
Peak 137.1 on Sunday 31 December 2023. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Over the whole window this ran Media-led; on the peak day itself it read Mixed-led. When the two differ, the fast signals (social, news) spiked and faded while the slow ones (search, research) carried the tail. 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
The #10 incident since 2020 by peak. Its peak day ranks #137 among all days — the higher days all belong to 10 bigger incidents.
How far it spread
Stayed in one vessel type — 1 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 3% 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 62% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 12% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- Tanker 'attacked by cruise missile' as it traverses Bab el-Mandeb Strait | Shipping Newsaljazeera.com · 2023-12-12
- Missile fired from rebel-controlled Yemen misses a container ship in Bab el-Mandeb Straitbiztoc.com · 2023-12-14
- Missile fired from Yemen misses container ship in Bab el-Mandeb Straitnaharnet.com · 2023-12-14
- Tanker Operator Missiles from rebel-held Yemen miss a ship loaded with jet fuel near the key Bab el-Mandeb Straittankeroperator.com · 2023-12-14
- Missile fired from rebel-controlled Yemen misses container ship in Bab el-Mandeb Straitdevdiscourse.com · 2023-12-14
- World News | Missile Fired from Rebel-controlled Yemen Misses Container Ship in Bab El-Mandeb Straitlatestly.com · 2023-12-14
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
- integrated and peak-day verdicts differ (smoothing artefact likely)
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Carriers quit the Red Sea, peak 137.1 on 31 December 2023. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2023-carriers-quit-the-red-sea/