Vessel Documentation Data Caveats
We indicate United States Coast Guard (USCG) vessel ownership information
for craft with current issuance and expiration dates on
their Certificate of Documentation or which have not exceeded their expiration
date by more
than 180 days. We don't report ownership information for
craft missing an issuance or an expiration date because these vessels
may have been
sold and the new owners may choose not to have them documented
or because some prior or new owners may choose to have them numbered by
a state rather
than documented by the USCG. Under this second set of circumstances,
the prior owner could otherwise incorrectly be indicated as the current
owner.
As we no longer are provided with the initial documentation
issuance date for the current owner, we now report the
issuance date listed for the most recent data that we
have gotten from the USCG. The absence
of an expiration date, or when an expiration date is
passed, does not necessarily indicate a vessel is technically out of documentation
because
the USCG sometimes puts these craft into an investigative
status.
In addition to listing each vessel's service as indicated by the owner,
we also list all endorsements held by craft. The trade
indicators are considered to be more reliable descriptors
of the types or uses of vessels
than is the service indicator. An asterisk is used to indicate
missing or unreported data for all vessel or ownership
variables.
The United States Code for vessel documentation is
cited (below) and is followed by the rationale for
publishing these data. |
46 U.S.C. 12119. List of documented vessels.
The Secretary of Transportation shall publish periodically
a list
of all documented vessels and information about those
vessels that the Secretary considers pertinent or useful.
The list shall contain a notation clearly indicating
all vessels classed by the American Bureau of Shipping. |
The above law requires the Coast Guard to periodically
publish a list of all documented vessels
and information about those vessels. To meet this requirement,
a determination was made by the
Secretary of Transportation as to what information should
be published about these vessels. That determination included the
name and address of the vessel owner as information that
should be published about these vessels. That information
has always been included in CG-408
Merchant Vessels of the United States, which was last published
in 1994. It is now published
via CD-ROM and distributed to the public by the National
Technical Information Service. Once
such information is published and made available to the
public, it is no longer protected under
either the Freedom of Information Act or Privacy Act. Thus
would be appropriate for inclusion
on an Internet site.
There are a number of reasons for publishing the name and
address of vessel owners. Those
reasons include:
- Documentation is a public process
- To make it more difficult for ineligible persons to
document vessels (i.e.,
someone who does not meet U.S. citizenship requirements)
- To deter theft and trade in stolen vessels.
Trade indicator keywords, as displayed in our vessel documentation output
are listed below:
- Coastwise Unrestricted
- Coastwise Fisheries Products Only
- Limited Bowaters Only
- Limited Coastwise Restricted MARAD Waiver
- Limited Coastwise Oil Spill Response Only
- Limited Coastwise Under Charter to Citizen Fishing
- Great Lakes
- Fishery
- Limited Fishery Only
- Recreational
- Limited Recreational - Great Lakes Use Only
- Registry
- Limited Registry Cross Border Financing
- Limited Registry No Foreign Voyage by Sea
- Limited Registry Trade with Canada Only
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