LONDON: The man behind the audio of Iran's seizure of a British-flagged tanker in the Gulf says the episode played out over a chaotic 20-40 minutes while a UK warship raced in from an hour away - too far to be of any help.
But he said the entire exchange was conducted over an open channel - number 16 - which is used globally by military and commercial vessels to send out calls. Almost a fifth of the world's oil passes through the 33-kilometre strait between Iran to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south. He said it takes at least a month for shippers to complete the paperwork needed to have their vessels registered under a different national flag.