View Full Version : Duplicated ship names
How are duplicated ship names dealt with? Presumably only one of any name at each port of registration. But both Fjord Line and CalMac have a 'Jupiter ' in British waters: couldn't this lead to confusion?
Rich
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Ship names are unique in the British Registry regardless of port, however, I believe it is possible that if there is a ship registered as "ABC" it is possible to register another ship as "ABC II". In the case that you refer to, is it possible that the two Jupiters are registered in two different countries? No rules against that.
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You may find that the full registered name of one is "Jupiter of ......", but that this has been shortened in putting the name on the vessel.
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The Fjord Line Jupiter is Norwegian registered whereas the CalMac is British so no problem.
You cannot have the same name under British registry, even at different ports. The way round this is to name it 'Jupiter of Portsmouth' as opposed to Jupiter.
When I had to re-register our boat (previous owner wanted to retain the name) it was a real pain trying to find a name which hadn't already been taken.
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If I had a boat and wanted to call it the Pride of Hull or something like that, then would I not be able to do so?
Also if I had owned my boat before P&O had called their ship Pride of Hull, then would they have had to use a different name on their ferry?
<hr width=100% size=1>We have all the time in the world.
Partially. Does this mean Jupiter PortA is a homicidal maniac if nobody has every encountered it twice?
Separately, I note that many ships in Southampton Water are clearly called No Smoking, and not "No Smoking of Southampton" or suchlike. Kindly explain.
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MainlySteam
19-08-03, 02:15
Seeing you have had no definitive answer to your post I will give the general practice of flag states as I have experienced it to be. I would assume those practices apply essentially universally.
Each ship on the register has to have a name not duplicated with any other ship in the same register regardless of port (also, some registers have only one port). Names cannot be offensive or confusing (eg I assume "Mayday" would not be permitted by any register) but can be differentiated by I, II, III etc (but some registers have rules on the use of that) or by the addition of the words "...of {place}" where place can be any place or thing (say "...of the Sea" or "....of the Wind") as long as the whole name has not been used before on the register being entered.
A common practice is that when you apply for registration, or in the case of some registers where you can reserve a name for a new build, you either have the choice of proposing several names (commonly 3) (the UK form does not do this but from memory has a place for "Name/Preferred Name") or phone or otherwise have a search of the register to see if the name exists. Many registers can be searched for name duplications online from the internet (I don't think that is possible with the UK register, but stand to be corrected on that).
Where a small vessel register exists (Part III I think in UK, Part B here in NZ) the requirements may differ. In NZ, names still cannot be duplicated over both parts of the register, regardless of what part you are in. I do not know this, but I suspect in the UK name duplication may be acceptable in the small vessel register - why I say that is the UK form for registering a small vessel allows for the registration of things like dinghies, "water bikes", etc which would, on the face of it seem to trivialise the register from the point of view of uniqueness.
The marking and carving requirements may differ between the ships and small vessel's register and I believe that is the case in the UK (no carved main beams for example). In NZ the marking method is also allowed flexibly according to vessel type regardless of the part of the register it is in - for example, a white yacht in the main ship register is not expected to have to apply the name in a manner which disfigures the appearance of the vessel. So a both a super yacht and a little yacht in the main register can get away with just painting their name on the hull, instead of the usual requirement that it be underlaid with cut plate, for example, and in NZ even small vessels in the ships register do not need to have the registration number carved. We are currently putting some vessels into another register (a quality one, but not UK or NZ) and they allow the same in the ships register for the case of just painting the name.
Trust that is of some help. If nothing else, if I have gotten something wrong with respect to UK requirements, it is likely to stir up some more responses for you.
John
<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by MainlySteam on 19/08/2003 02:15 (server time).</FONT></P>
You can call it what you like, but it can't be a registered vessel if the name is already in use on the Register.
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philip_stevens
20-08-03, 21:51
Actually, they are called Nosmo King. I don't know who he is or was, but many ships have his name on the front of the bridge ;-)
<hr width=100% size=1>regards,
Philip
ah, famous chap i believe
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/jdo0381l.jpg
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philip_stevens
24-08-03, 23:11
Good one /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif
<hr width=100% size=1>regards,
Philip
The comedian, the late Ted Ray ("Ray's a laugh") used Nosmo King as a stage name early in his career.
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If your boat was part one registered as Pride of Hull, before P and O, then they could not have called it that, you have the registered name, thats it.
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I think this explanation is correct. Isn't this why CALMAC had to rename their original Queen MAry so that Cunard could use the name.
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The British Register operates a practice whereby an owner with ships on that register may "reserve" certain names, if those names have been borne by that owners' ships in the past and are associated with that owner. There is, at the moment, no ship called "Queen Mary", but the ship being built for Cunard at the moment will receive that name, because Cunard reserved it when they sold the old one to Long Beach.
Should you wish to name a ship after a province of Imperial China, you will find that my old lot, CNCo, have "bagged" them all, and so on.
The silly bit of this story is that there is a British ship called "Britannia" at the moment - a 45,000 dwt bulk carrier. The Royal Family forgot to reserve the name! The owner of the current "Britannia" tells me that he will be happy to give it back should the Royal Family want it!
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Chris_Stannard
21-09-03, 18:00
As I understand it the British rules are as follows:
Part 1 Register, the name must be unique and the cannot be used by anyone on any British register. Thus if my boat is called Nonsuch on the Part 1 register you would not be allowed to register on either the Part 1 or the Part 3 (SSR) a second boat as Nonsuch, but you can get round it by using the name Nonsuch of Wolverhampton.
If you register a boat on the Part 3 (small ships register) you can use any name that is not in use on the part one register. I used to own a boat called Imagine and found that someone else had used the name when I got his marina bill. When I asked the MCA, they said that the part 3 register gave no protection to the name.
It you go to the MARS data base on the ITU website, where all boats are listed worldwide, you can look up many names as anyone who has a radio licence is listed there, and you will find that there are many UK boats names, like Imagine, which appear on many boats, all of them will be on the part 3 register
<hr width=100% size=1>Chris Stannard
As far as I know it's all down to the fact that each vessel, when properly registered, has a unique call sign. So there may be 50 Jupiter's on all sorts of registrations, including the same one, but each will have a different call sign, mmsi number etc.
<hr width=100% size=1>Well it's all for me grog, me jolly jolly grog!
>>and you will find that there are many UK boats names, like Imagine, which appear on many boats, all of them will be on the part 3 register <<
The Mars database only shows that a radio has been licensed to the boat. There is no reason that a UK boat has to be part 3 registered. There are lots of UK boats with radio licences that are neither part 1 nor part 3 registered
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MainlySteam
21-09-03, 22:49
<<<MARS data base on the ITU website, where all boats are listed worldwide>>>
While not important from the UK domiciled vessel point of view, the following may be of interest because I have seen the above said on the forum a number of times now.
All vessels worldwide having radio callsigns are in fact not searchable on the ITU website. That is because the privacy laws in some countries prohibit the release of that information relating to private individuals. So, for example, you will not find our vessel listed on the MARS site (well wasn't last time I checked!), nor any other NZ privately owned vessel (and in fact most small commercial ones as well), despite the fact it is registered in the NZ equivalent of the UK Part 1, has a full radio callsign (we have a 2 tier callsign system here - voluntarily equipped VHF vessels not carrying SSB get a licence fee free callsign) and an MMSI.
There are a number of countries similar, including some I imagine who don't bother informing the ITU of small vessel callsigns.
John
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Hmmm... I had a look at the <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.itu.int/cgi-bin/htsh/mars/ship_search.sh> ITU site</A>.
It reports 5 plain "Britannia", plus 9 "Britannia ...something" - all registered in the UK.
That's also confusing with respect to some previous posts in this thread.
Maybe the issue of duplicated ship names is better handled on paper than in the real world!
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MainlySteam
23-09-03, 05:35
As others have said, vessels do not have to be on a Register of Ships to have a radio callsign and be in the MARS database, so there may be many vessels in the database from the same nation all having the same name.
If you look again at the MARS site you will see that only one of the "Britannias" against the nation G is a registered ship (its registration number is given against the ID field) - it is a merchant ship and it will be, of course, the one that Mirelle referred to.
All the others are small workboats, a pleasure vessel and a platform (look at the vessel class field) none of which are on the Register of Ships (and one assumes are not required to be so). For the case you gave there is therefore no duplication of name on the Register, and it would be most unusual if there were to have been.
John
<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by MainlySteam on 23/09/2003 05:40 (server time).</FONT></P>
Good point.
I was aware of the register of ships thing, but did not check when looking at the database.
I'm just now realizing the hour of my previous post...
...maybe I should have slept by then, rather than browsing the internet!
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MainlySteam
23-09-03, 13:06
I had noticed the time on your post Mario - didn't know if you were very late getting to bed or very early getting up!
John
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The ships name is not the decider ...... it is the Regsitry number that is unique.
<hr width=100% size=1>Nigel ...
Bilge Keelers get up further ! I came - cos they said was FREE Guinness !
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As far as I have read and believe ....... the only requirement regards to a Ship / Boat name is :
That it should not be offensive, should not embarrass etc.
I have not read anywhere that states a name cannot be used by another .......... if that were true - bilmey there are a lot of illegal boat / ship names out there !! SSR don't care - otherwise you wouldn't see so many repeated names .......
When we do a Condition survey on a Commercial ship - we have to quote its Registry Number as well to clearly identify it ...... I think that says it all ????
<hr width=100% size=1>Nigel ...
Bilge Keelers get up further ! I came - cos they said was FREE Guinness !
/forums/images/icons/cool.gif
There used to be hundreds of "Sormovskis" knocking about.
It wouldnt be unusual for say Sormovsky 101 to be bound for Newport and Sormovsky 98 bound for Avonmouth.Both trying to take Pilots at the same pilot station at the same time.(On occasions both ships happily answering to either name)
I once put a pilot on the"Nor" who was waiting for a pilot to a South Wales Port when the "Ner" (the correct ship bound for Avonmouth )was still happily out of VHF range.
All makes for a bit of fun on an otherwise dull watch.......
anchorhandler
06-03-04, 13:40
On the subject of potentialy embarasing names. Just the other day, i steered clear of what looked like a 200k tonne (ish!) offtake tanker arriving at its berth at Fawley on the Solent, Of perticular intrest was the vessels name of 'Uranus' boldly painted on the bow!. Needless to say the vhf communication was a touch less monotone..."Soutampton VTS,...er, this is 'Uranus'" etc.etc.etc..
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Ships are issued with a number at build,this number originally the LR number and now perhaps more correctly the IMO number stays with the ship for its life.
Thus if you look at a register of ships this number is the only unique identifier, call signs MMSI etc. depend on flag.
regards
John R
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