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.
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: Global Fishing Watch and TMT's Vessel Viewer (e.g. for longer track histories), C4ADS's Triton tool (e.g. for additional ownership information), and MarineTraffic (e.g. for photos).
The AIS information comes from AIS static messages, which are linked to AIS position messages using the MMSI number.
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 authorization information
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 being 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 download icon on the top right to download the vessel track history in a KML format. Note this is downsampled track data, NOT raw AIS track data sent by the vessel.
This file can be opened in GIS software like Google Earth.
You can also download the event history of a vessel in a CSV or KML Format.
Example of downloaded CSV:
Example of events in Google Earth:
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