Accessing the Vessel Details Page

A vessel detail page contains information about one single ship or boat tracked by Skylight.

The vessel history page for a vessel can be accessed from the main map by:

…opening an event's card by clicking on it:

…or typing the name, MMSI, or call sign of the vessel in the search bar in the top right and clicking on one of the results.

Clicking either of these links will open the vessel details page in a new tab which will appear as below:

Using the Features on the Vessel Details Page

The vessel details page includes three main sections:

1. An Information panel (top left) that shows attributes about the vessel from AIS and registry information.
2.  A Tracks panel which is a version of the Skylight map (top right) that functions like the main map, but focuses on the events and tracks of a single vessel. 
3.  The Event History panel which lists the vessel events based on the Events menu on the map. 

Information

The information section on the left side of the screen shows data about the vessel along with links to other rich data sources about the same vessel. Links to Global Fishing Watch and TMT's Vessel Viewer (vessel history and details), C4ADS's Triton tool (vessel associations), and MarineTraffic (photos and current position) appear at the bottom of the AIS panel. 

The main fields about the vessel are taken from AIS messages. AIS static messages send this type of information, and position report messages send location info. The only thing linking these messages is the MMSI of the sender, so it is possible for mismatches to occur. 

When it appears on the page, clicking “Global Fishing Watch” will expand a panel of information that Global Fishing Watch has provided about the vessel:

Many vessel types have additional information, but it tends to exist for fishing and cargo vessels; otherwise, the “Global Fishing Watch” section won't appear. Global Fishing Watch (GFW) provides data about commercial fishing and support vessels by synthesizing more than 30 public vessel registries each month to develop a comprehensive database of known vessel information. 

Global Fishing Watch data is particularly helpful when: 

• A vessel is missing its vessel type or has an ambiguous vessel type in AIS, but there is additional information through Global Fishing Watch.
• You are interested in ownership information about a commercial fishing or support vessel.
• You want to see if there are discrepancies between what a vessel is transmitting on AIS and what has been collected by public registries.

It is possible for there to be multiple records in Global Fishing Watch matching the same vessel. Skylight uses a combination of MMSI, Name and IMO to look for matches in the GFW database. When there are multiple records, there will be a page button to scroll between records. 

Tracks

The Tracks panel provides many of the same functions as the main Skylight map including the events menu, date picker, time slider, and track legend, but focusing on only the events and track of the vessel currently viewed.

Event History 

The event history panel shows a list of events in chronological order, matching the events filter set in the Tracks map above. 

Downloading

Use the icon on the top right to download the vessel track history in KML format.

This file can open in Google Earth or your preferred GIS software. 

Additionally, you can choose to download the vessel's events in the bottom right panel as a CSV or KML:

When opened from your downloads folder, this will show a table of events: 

…or icons in Google Earth: