MERCHANT VESSELS OF THE UNITED STATES Updated Oct. 2009 ** This CD-ROM contains data from the U.S. Coast Guard's Marine Information Safety and Law Enforcement system (MISLE) and Vessel Documentation System (VDS) databases. The Coast Guard keeps the data for the following reasons: it provides complete and real-time performance histories on vessels and facilities; information on involved parties, vessel particulars, systems and previous inspections, including deficiencies, histories of vessel casualties, pollution incidents, vessel documentation, and civil penalty processing. Merchant Vessels of the United States is a data file of merchant and recreational vessels documented under the laws of the United States by the U.S. Coast Guard. The source for this file is the U.S. Coast Guard's Vessel Documentation System (VDS) databases, a comprehensive system serving many Coast Guard marine safety units, including the National Vessel Documentation Center. The data file of merchant vessels has been specifically prepared from several data tables contained in MISLE and VDS. Current as of August 2009, the data set contains information on commercial and recreational vessels. Not all recreational vessels are included: Generally, a vessel must be at least 5 net tons and be purchased using a maritime mortgage. No foreign vessels are contained in this file, although archival data in VESSEL.dbf includes a small number of foreign entries (see notes below). The data consist of vessel particulars and managing owner information. For vessels, the file contains the vessel name, official number, managing owner name, particulars such as tonnage and length, and authorized trade endorsements. Vessels in this file have a valid Certificate of Documentation; this quarter's extraction contains the certificate issue and expiration dates. ============================================================================== * For more information: This Web site gives ample information about vessel documentation including FAQ. http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/nvdc/ * For additional information about the data call Harold Krevait at the U.S. Coast Guard: (202) 267-6833/ HKrevait@comdt.uscg.mil * For additional information about the data processing please contact the IRE and NICAR Database Library: NICAR 141 Neff Annex Columbia, MO 65201 (573) 884-7711 SUMMARY: This data is particularly useful in locating the owner or detailed information about a specific vessel, a type of boat/ship. Reporters have used this data set when an accident occurs. If you've purchased this data from NICAR in the past, you'll notice some major changes. The most noticeable change is that the VIDT table has been replaced by the VESSEL table. VIDT came from the Marine Safety Information System (MSIS) and has been phased out. The table replacing VIDT.dbf is VESSEL.dbf and contains the same information as before. More on the changes from the U.S. Coast Guard: In December 2001, the U.S. Coast Guard transitioned from the Marine Safety Information System (MSIS) to the Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement (MISLE) system. MISLE changed the way the U.S. Coast Guard collects data. New data elements were added to collect information on new and expanded missions of the U.S. Coast Guard. As part of these changes, a new vessel table was included, providing details on more than 600,000XXXXX vessels. Many of these records were created in MSIS in the VIDT table and migrated to MISLE in the Vessel table. A new vessel/nonvessel id was created to replace the VKEY/FKEY used in VIDT. The Vessel table was constructed to include many of the same data elements in past MSIS VIDT tables. When the U.S. Coast Guard performs activities on vessels, new records are entered or updated in the system to reflect changes in the vessel. Vessel information is entered into MISLE when Coast Guard personnel have a reason to board vessels. VESSEL was designed to capture details on vessel design, manning requirements, cargo authority and operating details. On this CD: 1. VESSDOC (Vessel Documentation) Records: 331,641 This table contains documentation for vessels registered with the U.S. Coast Guard as of June 2009, including the company name and address or owner name. A new field is added to the file with information on ship builders. Vessdoc contains active vessels licensed to engage in commercial trade. Approximately two thirds of the vessels in Vessdoc are recreational. These vessels are required to register with the Coast Guard, who maintains the chain of title on these vessels. Vessdoc contains only active (current) vessels licensed to engage in commercial trade including large recreational vessels (26 net tons or greater). Many vessels operating in harbors and inland waterways are exempted from documentation and do not appear in VESSDOC. 2. VESSEL (Vessel Identification Table) Records: 1,019,693 See also the document about_vessel_table for additional information about this table and other tables put together by the Coast Guard. This table includes all the ships in VESSDOC, plus data on additional vessels with expired registration, foreign vessels and recreational boats. There are several fields that do not appear in VESSDOC, such as the number of crew, passenger limits and inspection dates. But a lot of data is not available in these fields. VESSEL contains any vessel the Coast Guard has had contact with since 1982. This includes all documented vessels (found in Vessdoc), foreign vessels, U.S. inspected vessels, and uninspected vessels. This also means that a vessel is never removed from this table. VESSEL contains more details on vessels but no ownership information. To join these tables use the vessel_id field in the VESSDOC table and the VID field in the VESSEL table. 3. Documents: about_vessel_table: information and layout provided by the Coast Guard nicar_vessel_layout: NICAR layout about_Vessdoc: layout and information on vessdoc table provided by the Coast Guard nicar_vessdoc_layout: NICAR layout Vflag: the vessel code vflag lookup table in text format 4. Lookups: vflag.dbf: lookup table for vessel.dbf. ====================================================================== NOTES: VESSDOC: When looking at the boat registration data, please note: * Hull numbers are 12 characters long. Hull numbers are required for recreational vessels, but commercial vessels don't always conform to the 12-character format. * Beware of fields like Buildplace, Hailport, Hullnumber and Yardbuilt. These fields include very sloppy data. For instance, some cities and states are separated by commas, some are not. Some city names like St. Louis are abbreviated while others are spelled out like Saint Louis, and some states are abbreviated while others are not. In the field of Bld_ct, 'S Hertogenbosch, Holland,' 'S-Hertogenbosch Holsand' refer to the same place. Hailport and hull_num had the same inconsistencies. The Yardbuilt is the same way for instance you can find Sea Ray Boats, Incorporated, Sea Ray Boats, Inc. etc. * Some commercial vessels may have more than one trade endorsement. They may be used for purposes for which they were not designed. For example, Offshore Supply Vessels can carry passengers for hire, engage in fishing operations and transport supplies to offshore rigs (as intended). Vessels also may be engaged in seasonal work. For example, a fishing vessel may be used for fishing part of the year and then for excursion cruises the other part of the year. VESSEL: Additional Information *The officalno (official number) field can be a Lloyd's number, American Bureau of Shipping number, State number, or U.S. Documented number. Lloyd's is a classification society that establishes and administers standards for the design, construction and periodic re-survey of ships and other marine structures as diverse as oilrigs and bridges. If the vessel is sold domestically or foreign or becomes a documented vessel in the U.S., the primary official number is placed with the newly assigned number and the previous primary number is placed in an alternate slot. The alternate numbers provide a way for the Coast Guard to track a vessel regardless of the vessel's ownership. *Please note that some records in the VESSEL table have strange values for the owner_id field. The U.S. Coast Guard said that the managing owner id (owner_id) field serves little purpose other than to differentiate two or more managing owners with the same spelling. * In fields with names in the format XXX_ind and XXX_desc, the XXX_ind field contains a code and the full description appears in XXX_desc. *Understand that this table has many fields however, many of the fields are blank. The Coast Guard gave the following explanation: Many elements are left blank because the information is not available, not pertinent to an investigation case, or not relevant to a vessel. For instance, some vessels in VESSEL are documented recreational vessels. You can see that these vessels do not have boilers, engineering departments, life saving systems, cargo-carrying capability or operate with any restrictions, so many data elements are left unfilled in VESSEL. Other vessels such as uninspected barges and foreign vessels are recorded in VESSEL because the vessels were involved in a pollution incident or vessel casualty. For these vessels, it is not relevant to the investigation to collect some vessel details. Other vessels such as foreign flag vessels are recorded in MSIS upon entering into U.S. ports. These vessels are boarded frequently; however, the boarding officers do not have vessel information readily available to them, the information is not known, or it is in Coast Guard personnel's opinion that the information is not critical to the performance of their duties. *Foreign vessels are included here in the following circumstances: Foreign vessels over a certain gross tonnage are required to report to the Coast Guard notice of arrival within 24 hours of entering a U.S. port. These vessels are subject to many of the same regulations governing U.S. vessels when operating in U.S. waters. The Coast Guard boards these vessels frequently, inspecting the vessel's life saving systems, machinery spaces, fire fighting systems, sanitation system for proper operation. Also U.S. and internal documents are checked for validity. In addition, vessels from foreign nations that trade with the U.S. may be on a list of special interest vessels, which are boarded by Coast Guard personnel to protect the public from military or terrorist acts. FOR A COPY OF LLOYD'S REGISTER OF SHIPPING, CONTACT: The Secretary (REF: MIPG/PPMS) Lloyd's Register of Shipping 100 Leadenhall Street London, EC3A 3BP United Kingdom Tel: 0171-423-2614 Fax: 0171-423-2190 The register is published every July and contains the names, classes, and general information concerning the ships classed by Lloyd's Register of Shipping. It also includes particulars of all known self-propelled sea-going merchant ships in the world with at least 100 gross tons. Also Mr. Krevait says VESSEL has associated files that provide details on owners and operators of vessels. This information is contained in the Vessel Responsible Party file (vrpt) and the Party Identification file (pidt). These files are available through the Freedom of Information Act. Some of the data may not be releasable under the provisions of the Privacy Act. Documented vessels are exempted from the Privacy Act and the names of individuals are releasable; however, individuals who own vessels that are not documented including foreign vessels are not releasable. ============================================================================= If you are working in Microsoft Access, here's how to open the DBF files: 1. Copy the tables to your hard drive. 2. Open a blank database in Access, name it and save it. 3. Inside the new database, in the File menu select "Get external data." Then select "Import." 4. An import wizard will ask you to locate the file(s). You will need to change the "file of type" to "Dbase IV". 5. Each table will need to be imported separately. ============================================================================= The IRE Resource Center offers stories, tipsheets and Uplink articles related to boat data. If you have further questions, you can call the Resource Center at (573) 882-3364 or lookup resources at www.ire.org/resourcecenter (IRE members can download tipsheets free of charge.) In 2004, using boat registration data, Eric Nalder of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote a series on some ultra-rich yacht buyers who were expecting to deduct millions from their income tax next year by depreciating their pleasure craft under provisions of the Bush administration's tax-relief program passed by Congress in 2003. About 500,000 boat owners nationwide can decrease their income-tax bill every year by declaring their vessels a second home, and boat manufacturers are equipping vessels to meet the requirements of the tax break. Some other large boat owners collect healthy tax deductions from putting their boats into charter arrangements that may skirt the provisions of the tax code. Some corporations take deductions on yachts that can seem to stretch the definition of a business requirement. Yacht owners sign papers when they buy their yachts miles offshore, to avoid state sales tax-and some in the state of Washington would like to reap benefits from California's lax sales tax rules. (Story# 21444) In 1996, the Green Bay Press-Gazette used similar boat registration records to look at the decreasing amount of dock space per boat. The series, one of the paper's first CAR stories, noted that the city turned to private developers to build more docks because the city's voters rejected a proposal to use tax money for boat space. The paper took a broader look at the kinds of boats registered in Wisconsin, particularly looking at boats registered to people living out-of-state. The Resource Center also provides a tipsheet (#448), which gives great pointers for dealing with transportation databases.