Thanks Foggy, Kyle, for your back up- I feel quite strongly about this one. As well as losing the link to that vessel's prior or subsequent history and guises, the link to technical data and AIS ship tracking information is also lost. I do not see how having access to both these identifiers can be confusing for anyone- the site already displays and allows searches by additional identifiers such as MMSI, which to most people is meaningless- but hardly confusing. The addition of pennant number searches is a step forward and a good initiative, but why give with one hand and take away with another? They are not unique and their usefulness appears to be limited to European navies. For me, where an IMO number exists, because it is unique it should take precedence over pennant numbers- but we now have the ability to use both, so why administratively limit to one or the other?
Regards
Paul