One of our readers has been monitoring the Lloyd’s Register (subscription required) of shipping vessels and noticed something unusual: bunches of Iranian ships were changing their names. For example, on November 16, 2008, the the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines’ Brilliance became the Mulberry.

No matter how odd a name Brilliance was, it probably wasn’t some desire to give the ship a more nautically correct name that led to the change. Besides changing it to Mulberry probably didn’t reduce the nautical oddness quotient, and I would guess that Iranian sailors on shore leave looking for some good times got more than a little ribbing from sailors from other countries when they said they crewed the Mulberry. (“Hey, is Andy Griffith on your ship too?” “No, smarty, and besides you’re thinking of Mayberry.” “Hey, when does the Gooseberry leave port?” “For the eleventieth time, I told you it’s Mulberry!!!”)

No, the likely reason was that the Brilliance was, on September 10, 2008, added by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) to its lists of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons, as were all the other vessels of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. Shortly thereafter, the Chairman of IRISL, in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, pooh-poohed the notion that the sanctions were having any effect on his business.

We have not had any problem with admission of our ships. We have no shipping contracts and have no lines to America, and we have no relation with America’s (shipping) routes. We work with Europe and Asia and when they sell something to Iran, they admit our ships

It makes you wonder then why, just weeks after the new sanctions, IRISL renamed forty-six vessels in its fleet. IRISL probably figured it could rename its ships faster than OFAC could revise its list. Of course, IRISL can’t change the unique I.M.O. number assigned to its ships and contained in each ship’s SDN listing. Still, the Iranians are obviously banking on the likelihood that some shippers may only pay attention to vessel’s name and won’t focus on its I.M.O. number.

For the record, here are the IRISL vessels with post-sanctions name changes:

The lesson here, and it probably shouldn’t be down here after the long table, is checking vessel names isn’t enough. You have to check the I.M.O. number as well.

Oh, and feel free in the comments section, to make fun of the new names, obviously crafted to make the ships sound, well, less Iranian. I mean why else would you name a ship “Lavender” or “Dandelion”? Those are names for soaps or body washes, not ships.

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