Hi Jimmy,
Thanks for your info, yes I can use Excel ok, and it`s easy enough to log one`s sightings of planes, trains, ships or whatever. I`m sure that people doing this for ships will compile a huge database over time. As you say as an island we could get anything rolling up, but as the books I mentioned have 23,000 or more ships already listed, I thought it would be a good starting off point! I gather the books will be updated every year, with (presumably) more vessels as they come to light, so I was just wondering if there was anything that contained all known ships, however from your comment I assume such a book would need to be about a foot thick.....
I`m based in the North West Highlands of Scotland, right on tht coast, so I can at least spot the odd cargo ship amongst the CalMac ferries!
Cheers,
Monte