Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#21

Post by roncesvalles » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

luxuryballs wrote: post #13

So apparently the reason they don’t just go for it is due to insurance. Because Iran technically isn’t suppose to just sink a civilian vessel, but the risk is there so the ships are ordered by the owner/stakeholder not to go due to the insurance coverage. Kind of interesting, they could technically call Iran’s bluff but it would mean, they violate the insurance contract and lose coverage? I’m just reading about this…

The capability is very real. And they don't have to sink the ship, just one Shahed drone exploding on the deck and injuring/killing a sailor is deterrence enough.

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#22

Post by anonfunction » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:00 PM UTC

4ndrewl wrote: post #5

You might want to rethink scraping marinetraffic before you get a call from their lawyers? https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/p/terms

Fair enough, I'm actually not scraping it on any automated cycle currently, I just manually copied the JSON from their site to get some ships on the map.

There's a few live ship tracking APIs I considered but they are expensive or their free offering just straight up didn't work. I sent a few an email if they would consider sponsoring the project, no replies yet.

    - AISStream.io — https://aisstream.io — Down/not working
    - DataDocked — https://datadocked.com — Ran out of credits on a single failed request
    - VesselFinder — https://www.vesselfinder.com/realtime-ais-data — Enterprise contact form, asked if they wanted to sponsor in exchange for a link
    - MarineTraffic — https://www.marinetraffic.com, their API is like an enterprise contact form, same as above, waiting for response.

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#23

Post by starik36 » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:00 PM UTC

frogperson wrote: post #6

https://warescalation.com/ is also a good source of info.

It says US-Israel Bloc military deaths - 74. Iran military deaths - 10,500 It has no information what is the source of information. Seems like made up numbers.

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#24

Post by Doohickey-d » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC

dr_robert wrote: post #15

What did you use for the map ? Mapbox ??

Looks like it's using leaflet + map tiles from https://carto.com/

I think Mapbox also provides a similar looking basemap style.

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#25

Post by anonfunction » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC

MiSeRyDeee wrote: post #19

This will be inherently inaccurate because data was based on public AIS signal, but ships are turning off their AIS to avoid detection. > In an attempt to evade detection, many ships appear to be deliberately switching off their tracking system - known as AIS (Automatic Identification System). https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4geg0eeyjeo

Great point and something I didn't consider, I should make a big disclaimer it's not meant to be fully accurate or live data. Thanks for the comment!

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#26

Post by dylan604 » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:03 PM UTC

ggm wrote: post #8

Maps can be so misleading. It looks like a dredging operation in Omani waters could alleviate this, if we'd started decades ago. Moving to a topographic view, it becomes clear the neck of land at "two seas view" is narrow, but tall. It would literally be moving a mountain. Panamax and suezmax boats are smaller than ULCC supertankers. Ferdinand De Lesseps time has passed. This would be ruinously expensive. Better to n…

> This would be ruinously expensive.

I bet it could have been done with the money spent on the "war"

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#27

Post by ktallett » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:03 PM UTC

cramsession wrote: post #20

[flagged]

Not the first time they couldn't keep to a ceasefire for even a day, let alone 24 hours. Exactly the same as what happened with Palestine last year as well.

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#28

Post by anonfunction » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:03 PM UTC

dr_robert wrote: post #15

What did you use for the map ? Mapbox ??

CartoDB and Leaflet. Source is available here btw: https://github.com/montanaflynn/ishormuzopenyet

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#29

Post by croisillon » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:04 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #12

I'm not really very up to speed on this, can someone explain how the strait is actually closed? Are the Iranians threatening to sink any ships that pass by, or what? How come any ships don't turn their transponders off and try to make a run for it?

[flagged]

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#30

Post by stavros » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 10:05 PM UTC

MattDamonSpace wrote: post #16

stavros wrote: post #12

I'm not really very up to speed on this, can someone explain how the strait is actually closed? Are the Iranians threatening to sink any ships that pass by, or what? How come any ships don't turn their transponders off and try to make a run for it?

They’ll sink ships or cause damage with low cost drones or missles The strait isn’t wide enough, Iran can see any ships attempting

I see, thanks. Looks like the strait is 77 km wide, which isn't one ship's width but probably not wide enough that binoculars wouldn't see everything.