Why Are Some Vessel Details Pages Blank?

Vessel detail pages have two sections. On the left side is General Information about the vessel’s identity. On the right side is the Event History containing all activities that Skylight captured for the vessel.

Blank/Limited Event History

Sometimes when you search for a vessel, you may land on a page like this with limited Event History.

There are a few reasons this may happen:

Skylight generally maintains information for a maximum of 18 months. If the vessel has not transmitted on AIS at all in the last 18 months, then the Event History would appear blank. With AIS off, there is no possibility of capturing events on a specific vessel detail page.
If Skylight did not generate any events (e.g. Fishing, Standard Rendezvous, correlated Vessel Detection, Port Visit) for that vessel in the last 18 months, the Event History will appear blank except for the Last Known Position.
If Skylight believes this vessel is a buoy, it will not show any Event History as events are intended only for vessels. Last Known Position will not be available as well. Vessels that are classified as buoys by Skylight’s model will have a buoy icon next to “Vessel Type”:

Error in the system where information is being split across multiple pages. Our team is investigating instances when this happens. In the meantime, we recommend checking for multiple search results with the MMSI or IMO number to see if the other pages have more information (example below). Alternatively, there are other public tools available like Global Fishing Watch’s Vessel Viewer and MarineTraffic.

Blank/Limited General Information

Sometimes when you search for a vessel, you may find limited General Information about the vessel’s identity beyond the MMSI number. This is almost always due to the vessel not providing additional information when configuring their AIS transponder.