Ships still detouring the Cape as Red Sea traffic runs half the baseline

Kiel counts about 49 ships a day near the Red Sea — 55% below the corridor baseline of ~109. Cape of Good Hope traffic is ~35 a day, 149% above its baseline. Logistics Stress sits near 74 (Severe). Longer routes, not a freeze of world trade.

The Kiel Trade Indicator’s ship count near the Red Sea / Bab el-Mandeb approaches averaged about 49 ships a day in the two weeks to 21 August 2026. That is 55% below the corridor baseline of about 109 a day. Lower counts signal diversions away from the Red Sea / Suez corridor. This is a traffic count, not a freight-rate quote.

At the Cape of Good Hope the same window averaged about 35 ships a day — 149% above a baseline of about 14 a day. Higher counts there are the classic signature of vessels routing around Africa instead of using Suez. The two prints move together: fewer ships in the Red Sea, more around the Cape.

On the other ocean shortcut, the Panama Canal Authority’s July operations summary put waiting-plus-transit time at 25.4 hours a day on average, with 34 oceangoing transits a day. Large-ship booking slots ran at 112% of the advertised capacity, and maximum authorized draft on the large-ship lock was cut to 48 then 47.5 feet on Gatun Lake water projections. Draft cuts shrink cargo per transit even when daily slot counts hold.

Logistics Stress sits near 74 (Severe). That compounds chokepoint traffic, canal hydrology, and freight-cost indexes. Ships are taking longer and costlier paths; that is congestion and rerouting stress, not a claim that canals are closed or that world trade has stopped.

Sources: Kiel Institute Trade Indicator (Red Sea and Cape ship counts) and Panama Canal Authority monthly operations summaries. World Stress does not infer port closures from these counts.