Vessel Details

Skylight maintains a vessel database that can provide additional information and behavior history of vessels. This information can be accessed in two main ways:

Search Bar - In the top right, search for a vessel by name, MMSI, Call Sign or IMO number.
From an Event - Click the name of vessels on Events. The exception is Dark Detection Events where there was no AIS data.

Clicking either of these links will open a page in a new tab:

Vessel Details Page

In the Skylight system, a “vessel” = a unique MMSI.

In the outlier scenario that multiple vessels are sharing the same MMSI number, their information will be combined into one page. Below is an example of a frequently misused MMSI number, 412000000, and its messy, combined track history over a 6 month period:

Additionally, Skylight displays the most recent information associated with that MMSI. So if a vessel has kept the same MMSI and changed its name, the most current name will be what appears on this page.

Vessel Information

The information section on the left side of the screen shows data about the vessel. The AIS information comes from AIS static messages, which are linked to AIS position messages using the MMSI number.

This page also links to other rich data sources about the same vessel: Global Fishing Watch and TMT's Vessel Viewer (e.g. for longer track histories), C4ADS's Triton tool (e.g. for additional ownership information), IMCS Network's Combined Regional Authorisation Vessel Tool (CRAVT) and MarineTraffic (e.g. for photos).

The Global Fishing Watch information comes from GFW's API (Version 3). These data are particularly helpful when

A vessel is missing information in AIS but there is additional information via GFW's sources
You are interested in discrepancies between what a vessel is transmitting on AIS and what has been collected by public registries and shown via GFW
You are interested in ownership, gear type, or RFMO authorisation information

For vessels potentially connected to oil slicks, there will be a link to SkyTruth Cerulean, which indicates possible pollution based on Cerulean’s satellite detection capabilities.
The starting date of the oil spill data we share is 1/1/2023.

You can find more information about Cerulean's capabilities here.

Vessel Tracks Map

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, and map tools (ruler, map layers, show all tracks) but focusing on only the events and track of the vessel being currently viewed.