Update on Damaged Tanker in Strait of Hormuz

Initial report here. Good comments - probably not an earthquake...

NY Times: Questions Swirl About Damaged Japanese Tanker

With the tanker docked in the United Arab Emirates, the owner, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, and port officials puzzled over precisely what had shattered windows on the vessel, knocked off a lifeboat and punched a dent into its hull. The damage was apparently inflicted early Wednesday morning in the Strait of Hormuz, a passageway for shipping much of the world’s oil from the Middle East.

Mitsui officials said that crew members on the ship, the M. Star, had seen a flash and heard an explosion. They also dismissed earlier speculation by officials in Iran and Oman that the damage had been caused by a “freak wave.”

Me, I'm liking the meteor theory proposed by MDB in the comments to my original post.

Possible Attack on Oil Tanker Near Strait of Hormuz

Sketchy early reporting - press release from Mitsui:

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.(MOL, President : Koichi Muto) today reported that at about 5:30 a.m. JST (00:30 local time) on Wednesday, July 28, west of the Strait of Hormuz at 26°27' N 56°14' E (Oman territorial waters), the VLCC M. STAR owned by MOL, suffered hull damage caused by an explosion which seemed to be an attack from external sources.

The degree and details of hull damage are currently under investigation but no serious injury was reported, although one of the crew was slightly injured, and no oil leaked from the hull.
Further, M. STAR continues her voyage, making for the UAE port of Fujairah, where the damage and its causes will be thoroughly investigated.

M. STAR took on crude oil Tuesday, July 27, at the UAE Port of Das Island, after which it departed for Chiba Port in Japan.

Details of M/V M. STAR are as follows:
Gross tonnage 160,292 tons
LOA : 333.00 m
FLAG : Marshal Islands
Built in : 2008
Crew : 15 Indian / 16 Philippine crew
Cargo : Crude oil 270,204 MT

More:

There was an explosion on the starboard side of the ship, which damaged some hatches and one of the lifeboats, said Corey Barker, a spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, speaking by phone from the fleet’s base in Manama, Bahrain. “The cause and extent of the damage is unknown and will be investigated,” he said.

Info on the Strait of Hormuz here:

Located between Oman and Iran, the Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Hormuz is the world's most important oil chokepoint due to its daily oil flow of 16.5-17 million barrels (first half 2008E), which is roughly 40 percent of all seaborne traded oil (or 20 percent of oil traded worldwide). Oil flows averaged over 16.5 million barrels per day in 2006, dropped in 2007 to a little over 16 million barrels per day after OPEC cut production, but rose again in 2008 with rising Persian Gulf supplies.

At its narrowest point the Strait is 21 miles wide, and the shipping lanes consist of two-mile wide channels for inbound and outbound tanker traffic, as well as a two-mile wide buffer zone. The majority of oil exported through the Strait of Hormuz travels to Asia, the United States and Western Europe. Currently, three-quarters of all Japan’s oil needs pass through this Strait. On average, 15 crude oil tankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz daily in 2007, along with tankers carrying other petroleum products and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Click on maps to enlarge.

UPDATE: In a weird way, Iran rules out terrrorism:

The Managing Director of Iranian Navigation and Ports Organization on Wednesday rules out the possibility of terrorist attack on a Japanese tanker in Persian Gulf, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
"Probably the earthquake has caused such an incident," Ataollah Sadr was quoted as saying.
Talking to Mehr about the blast in Japanese oil tanker, Sadr rejected the possibility of any terrorist attack on the tanker, saying "due to the presence of some inflammable steams and gases on the oil tankers, the possibility of blast cannot be ruled out."
"Based on the dialogues and messages heard from Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC), there has been news about the quake occurrence," Sadr said, referring to the Japanese oil tanker M. Star blasted near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, leaving one person slightly injured.

Maybe something got lost in translation.

Big Wave + Cruise Ship = Bad News

Latest cruise ship meets rogue wave discussed here:

The Louis Majesty wasn't hit by a sudden storm, or any of the other expected dangers of maritime travel. Rather it may have been the victim of rogue waves. For centuries mariners have told stories about sudden waves that would emerge out of the open ocean without warning, strong enough to topple even large ships. The SS Waratah, which vanished on a journey to Cape Town; the MS Munchen, lost en route to Savannah; even the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, "the good ship and true" of the Gordon Lightfoot song, which disappeared on Lake Superior — all were rumored to be sunk by rogue waves.

Until recently, however, marine scientists dismissed rogue waves as little more than a sailors' fantasy, with reason — there was little evidence to back them up. But in 1995 an oilrig in the North Sea recorded a 25.6 m-high wave that appeared out of nowhere, and in 2000 a British oceanographic vessel recorded a 29 m-high wave off the coast of Scotland. In 2004 scientists from the European Space Agency (ESA), as part of the MaxWave project, used satellite data to show that freak waves, higher than 10 stories, were rare but did occur on the oceans.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1969845,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz0hJ7tuRCR

Some background here.