At our site, you can find the easiest, most direct path to the top NOAA fisheries vessel documentation search. Some of you may be looking a bit askance at that, as you may know, the United States Coast Guard doesn’t provide NOAA Fisheries with vessel ownership info anymore. Instead, it’s all run through the place where we’ve always enabled our customers to look up information: at the United States Coast Guard National Vessel Documentation Center database. It’s one more way that we make can the entire vessel documentation process easier on our customers.
How our NOAA Fisheries Vessel Documentation Search Works
When you go to our site, click on “Vessel Search.” Then, you’ll be taken to a page where you can type in the name and the official number of any vessel that you may want information for. This search can tell you all of the info you need to know if you’re considering purchasing a vessel, or just want more information about one. You don’t need to have both the official number and the vessel number, but you will need to keep in mind that as we don’t control the database. It gets updated quarterly, so while it may have up to date information, it may not include anything that’s been updated before the end of the most recent quarter.
What Vessels are Included
One question we often get about this search is: “I couldn’t find the vessel I was looking for, what went wrong?” Often, we answer this with a question: “are you sure the vessel you were looking for has been documented?” If it hasn’t, then it probably won’t show up in this database. By that same token, if the vessel’s documentation has been left to expire, then it’s not going to show up in this database. This can come in quite handy, if say you’re talking to someone about purchasing their vessel, and they say: “sure, it’s been documented,” and then you can’t find the info in the database. If they’re lying about that, then you can safely assume they’re lying about other things.
Tips for Better Searching
The letters tend not to be case sensitive, so it’s OK if you type them in all capital letters or lowercase. However, the search is very strict about getting the name exactly right. It won’t give you something that’s closer, like “Wayfarer” for “Wayfairer” or something like that. You have to get it exactly right. This also includes numerals, too. For example, if you’re looking for more information about “Bud Lightning II,” then it’s actually not going to give you a positive search for “Bud Lightning 2.” It’s a stickler for things like that. Always be sure to give as much information as possible. The more you can narrow down your search, the clearer it can be.
More than the Database
The lookup is just one of the many ways that we make documentation easier on our customers. Find out more by calling us at (800) 535-8570.