Skylight Vessel Information
When viewing a Vessel Details screen in Skylight, you may see instances when additional metadata is available from Global Fishing Watch. Skylight is using data from Global Fishing Watch that was originally collected as the basis for a study, Tracking elusive and shifting identities of the global fishing fleet, published in Science Advances. GFW combined and synthesized satellite vessel tracking data and more than 40 public vessel registries to develop a comprehensive database of known vessel information.
This is particularly helpful in cases where a vessel is missing its vessel type in AIS, but there is additional information in registry sources aggregated through GFW’s efforts.
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.