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How the hell did speedboats get "dozens of miles out", unless they are more like fast patrol vessels (P2000 or similar) than the outboards we saw in the incident with the Port Royal (which looked like the sort of thing you might waterski behind). Venturing into open water in such a small boat would be dangerous, extremely uncomfortable, and risk running low on fuel unless you carried lots of extra cans.

There's nothing inherently dangerous about operating fairly small (20-30 feet), but well-equipped and founded, outboard speedboats "dozens" of miles out to sea, uncomfortable maybe, but certainly not dangerous unless you try to do it in a typhoon. I've seen twenty-five foot outboards here on the US West Coast almost 100 miles out to sea routinely fishing for tuna with no problems whatsoever.

The real danger for the crews of those speedboats is attempting to play "tag" with armed vessels, naval or civilian, many times their size.

How was the ship spotted that far out so that speedboats could reach and intercept it?

Binoculars, probably.

I was thinking of the waters around Britain when I asked about the speedboats, and imagining them in the North Atlantic! Obviously the Gulf will be calmer. Distance is an issue because it will take the speedboat a couple of hours to reach the ship, during which the ship will move a considerable distance itself.

When operating a 20-30 foot outboard vessel, weather is always a determining factor no matter what body of water you are in; you pick your weather and sea conditions in order to operate with an acceptable margin of safety. The type of small speedboat in question can be operated almost anywhere in the world if this tenet is kept in mind.

Yes, distance is an issue, and we don't really know what "dozens of miles" means; it could logically be construed as anything from 24 to 96 miles. I rather think the author of the article was being vague because he or she really didn't know either, but, given the circumstances, I would think the distance was on the order of 36 to 48 miles, and possibly less. Some of the outboard speedboats operated by Iran, and other governments including the US, are quite capable, in moderate seas, of speeds in excess of 45 knots, so we are probably talking about an hour's run or so for the speedboats. And yes, the ship will be moving, but the speedboat has a considerable speed advantage and should have no trouble in overtaking it's intended target.

The speedboats were almost certainly sent out on seeing this vessel, as you'd use a larger boat for extended patrols out there.
And you'd need a pretty good pair of binoculars to recognise an MSC vessel several dozen miles out, even on a clear day in the Gulf- especially as unlike the RFA, MSC don't have a special ensign, so you'd have to either read the name or recognise Navy personnel on deck. Makes me wonder whether it was spotted by an aircraft, or whether the Iranians used its AIS signal to recognise it- but most likely is that they noticed the deck cargo!

I was being somewhat facetious when I mentioned binoculars, but it's quite possible, if a ship is 24 to 36 miles away to identify it's type and give a good indication of at least it's nationality particularly if you are using a good set of binoculars or a powerful spotting scope. There is nothing at all unusual in such a situation. Another possibility is a land-based radar such as port authorities world-wide use to monitor ship movements in and around their ports and territorial waters, again nothing unusual in this type of surveillance.

Though the description of the encounter is vague and lacks important details, I personally think this was a non-event. It appears some government authority (Iran?) monitored a ship navigating in, or near, what it considers it's territorial waters and sent out a couple of speedboats to take a closer look. The speedboats made contact, got a closer look, were fired on by the understandably nervous crew of the ship, and broke off contact. The fact that shortly afterwards the Iranians made a routine inquiry of the ship indicates to me that their intention was simply to identify the ship as bureaucrats the world over are wont to do.