Number of vessels sailing around Africa up 85 pct on Houthi attacks in Red Sea

The number of vessels sailing around the southern tip of Africa is up 85 percent from the first half of December as attacks by Yemen’s Houthis force ships to sail thousands of miles further than normal.

The rise in voyages around the Cape of Good Hope coincides with a 70 percent decline in the number of ships arriving in the Gulf of Aden to transit the Red Sea, according to Steve Gordon, Managing Director of Clarksons Research, a unit of the world’s largest shipbroker.

Merchant ships have been largely avoiding the route that would ultimately take them through the Suez Canal since Yemen’s Houthi militants began attacking them. Last week a missile strike killed three crew members, the first confirmed deaths since the attacks began.

The most significant decline in traffic stems from container ships and natural gas carriers, which are barely entering the Gulf of Aden at all. The number of bulk commodity carriers has also continued to fall in recent weeks, Gordon said, down 58 percent last week from early December. That compares with a 32 percent drop in January.

The reduction in sailings from crude carrying tankers is about a third from December levels, he added.