Sunday 3 May 2026 · below the Index · spike
Strait of Hormuz shipping crisis and attacks
Multiple maritime incidents in the Strait of Hormuz region during late April and early May 2026, including Iranian seizures of cargo vessels, piracy off Somalia, attacks on merchant ships, and stranded seafarers. Ukraine also targeted Russian shadow fleet tankers. US military intervened to intercept sanctioned vessels and escort merchant ships through the strait.
Peak 209.8 on Sunday 10 May 2026. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Media-led, both over the window and on the peak day.
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 98% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Wednesday 22 April 2026.
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: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 1% 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 63% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 90% negative overall; 20% strongly so.
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
- Breakfast Wrap: The seafarers stuck in the Strait of Hormuzabc.net.au · 2026-05-06
- Attack on French cargo ship highlights continued risks in Strait of Hormuzstraitstimes.com · 2026-05-07
- Seafarers trapped in limbo as US and Iran clash in Strait of Hormuzaljazeera.com · 2026-05-08
- 'Unidentified aircraft' hit Korean cargo ship in Hormuz on Monday: Seoulscmp.com · 2026-05-10
- Iranian Shadow Fleet Tanker Ablaze off Jaskmaritime-executive.com · 2026-05-10
- CS Anthem chemical tanker becomes second US-flagged vessel to exit Strait of Hormuzal-monitor.com · 2026-05-06
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- The Index was high across this window, but no higher than the surrounding period — the elevation belongs to that wider stretch of news, not to this incident alone, so it is not counted among the incidents that moved the Index.
- 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: Strait of Hormuz shipping crisis and attacks, peak 209.8 on 10 May 2026. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2026-strait-of-hormuz-shipping-crisis-and-attacks/