imo

[bigzap]

I have just joined a few months ago,  looking on the ships details I which I understand most of them, but what is  IMO  and AIS information? Is there a page with this information on the web site, I cannot find one, could be looking in the wrong place. I am or was a shipwright and used to build ships many years ago, but still love looking at ships to this day.  Any help you can provide would be gratefully received, thank you

[CedricH]

Hi,

the IMO number is a unique identification number for a ship as there may be multiple ships with the same name (also see this FAQ). IMO itself stands for International Maritime Organization. For more information about that, you can read this page on their website: http://www.imo.org/About/Pages/Default.aspx

AIS is a system which shows the destination, heading and speed of a ship. This information can be viewed for free on various websites such as Marine Traffic

Regards
Cedric

[Clydee]

Hi bigzap

Welcome to the site.  

I suggest you go from the Support tab on the Home page to the link to Uploading Photos Guidance then look at Index Item 3.

That will refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMO_ship_identification_number

Best regards
Clyde

[Steve Geronazzo]

Hi bigzap,

Welcome to the site.

To find IMO numbers, I uses EQUASIS. You can create an account for free and you will be able to get vessel details and IMO numbers. It is a good source to get details or confirm details before uploading photos to the website.

http://www.equasis.org

For the AIS, I use Siitech. It is a free service to track ships all around the world. It is great to plan you shipspotting outings.

vtslite.siitech.com/

Steve Geronazzo

[bigzap]

Many thanks for the information you have answered my next question about IMO ,  I use Ship finder
http://shipfinder.co/  to track ships…good site. Again to you all thanks for all the information .. here is another site I use for tracking ships
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?level0=100