Getting Started with shipdata.net

shipdata.net is a dry-bulk vessel-tracking and freight-intelligence platform. This guide orients you to the whole site - which page actually loads when you arrive, how the navigation is organised, the two persistent helpers that follow you (the site-wide search and the DBPI ticker), and what you can see without an account versus what unlocks when you log in. There are three distinct entry pages - the live 3D globe at /, the marketing landing at /home, and the "Why us" page at /about - and they do not share the same layout, so it pays to know which one you are looking at.

The site root (/) is the free, live 3D globe

When you go to the bare domain (/), shipdata.net does not serve a marketing splash - the server returns the interactive 3D Globe with the live fleet on it. The code comment is explicit: "Homepage = the free, pre-login 3D globe." The old marketing landing was moved to /home.

• What you see: the tracked fleet and trade lanes rendered on a rotating globe. Ship, lane and port names are visible without logging in - the detail pages behind each entity stay behind the sign-up gate.
• How the page is framed: because / serves the globe with the full authenticated top bar (it renders the same grouped nav as content pages, with /globe marked active), you get the eight-group menu, the Theme button, the ← map shortcut, a contextual 📖 Guide link (the globe is in the Guide map, pointing to the "live-map" article), the sign-in/account chip, and the sticky site-wide search row. The DBPI ticker is deliberately suppressed here (the homepage is one of the "cleaner first impression" pages), so don't expect the rate strip on the globe itself.
• The flat 2D alternative: if you prefer a Leaflet map, the Map nav item (/app, members) is the authenticated 2D fleet view, and /home carries a free 2D Leaflet map (covered below).

Why it matters: a charterer or broker can confirm at a glance where tonnage is clustering and which lanes are busy before committing to deeper analysis - and without spending a login. Treat the globe as your always-on, free market backdrop.

The Command Center (/command) - your shore control room

The Command Center at /command is the mission-control view: one screen that tiles the live 3D fleet globe (the same globe, embedded) with the market & DBPI panel, the open-tonnage board, live reposition signals, and a KPI strip (fleet tracked, underway now, DBPI, VLSFO). It is a glance-and-go bridge - every number is live and links straight into the full tool behind it. The globe and market read for everyone; the open-tonnage and signal panels fill in once you sign in. Think of it as the shore-side control centre for your whole dry-bulk picture.

The /home landing page - free 2D map, bunker marquee, gated nav

/home is now role-aware. Logged-in members get a personalised dashboard - three at-a-glance cards (your fleet today, market at a glance, where to load next) above a jump grid into every tool - and login redirects straight here. Anonymous visitors still get the public marketing landing (the PUBLIC_HTML template) described below, which uses the same two-row brand pattern as the rest of the site but its own simpler chrome.

• Top row (#bar): the brand logo, a flat public nav (.pubnav), a ◑ Theme toggle, and a #who slot on the right. That slot is filled by a live /api/me check: signed-in visitors see "Signed in: <name>" plus Open dashboard and Log out buttons; anonymous visitors see Register and Log in buttons.
• The public nav itself: it leads with 🌍 3D Globe in accent colour carrying a green FREE pill, then Why us (→ /about), then the feature links - Map, Ships, Open tonnage, Schedule, Ports, Congestion, Distance (these carry a data-feat attribute and trigger the gate), plus World fleet and Market (public, link straight through) and Bunker and Analytics (gated). This is a flatter, different list from the grouped nav on content pages.
• Sticky search row (#bar_search): a single search box (described in its own section below), sticky at top:46px so it stays put as you scroll.
• Bunker marquee (#bnk): a thin auto-scrolling strip - ship-bunker icon, the label Bunker · USD / t, a history → link to /bunker, an "as of" date (sliced to the day), then a marquee of port · grade · $price triplets. It loops seamlessly (the content is duplicated, animated over ~70s) and pauses on hover so you can read a value. If the bunker feed returns nothing, the whole strip hides itself.
• The map: a full-width Leaflet 2D map (OpenStreetMap tiles) filling the viewport below the bars.

Why it matters: /home is the page to bookmark if you want the flat 2D fleet view plus a running bunker tape without logging in - and the page that funnels new users into the sign-up gate.

The /home map: layers control, storm overlay and live-fleet legend

The Leaflet map on /home is not a static picture - it has interactive controls that the casual visitor often misses.

• Ship markers: every position is a small coloured dot (circleMarker, radius 4), drawn on a single canvas so ~19-20k markers stay smooth. Colour encodes state: blue = In port (moored), amber = Anchorage (waiting), green = At sea, grey = Idle / unknown. Hovering shows a tooltip with the ship name and its state label; clicking a dot opens the free ship snapshot modal (see below).
• 🚩 Layers control (top-left): a 🗺 Layers button opens a small menu with one toggle: 🌀 Active storms & tropical cyclones. Turning it on fetches the live NHC + GDACS feed. Each active system is drawn as a translucent pulse ring (its radius scales with wind speed) plus a white-rimmed centre dot, with a tooltip giving the storm name, class (Tropical Depression / Tropical Storm / Hurricane-Typhoon with Saffir-Simpson category) and wind in knots. Ring colour ramps from pale blue (depression) through yellows and oranges to deep red at Cat-5 strength. If there are no active storms, you get a note that the feed is live but the basin is quiet, and the toggle switches itself back off.
• Live fleet legend (bottom-left): a compact key headed Live fleet - N (N is the exact count of plotted vessels) followed by the four state colours and their labels. Use the number as a quick read on how much of the curated fleet is currently broadcasting.

Why it matters: the storm layer is the one thing here aimed squarely at operators - ocean-going ships care about cyclones, not local rain - and the fleet count + state mix is a free, instant gauge of how busy and how laden the market is right now.

The free ship snapshot modal

Clicking any ship dot on the /home map (or a SHIP result in that page's search) opens a free live snapshot (fetched from /api/public_ship), labelled "Live snapshot · free". It centres the map on the vessel (zoom 6) and lays out whatever is known in three sections - empty rows are silently dropped, so you never see placeholder dashes:

• Voyage data: Destination, ETA (UTC), Current draught (m), Navigation status, Position (lat/lon, with region in brackets), and "Position received" rendered as a human "x min/h/d ago".
• Identity: IMO, MMSI, Callsign, Ship Type, Flag, Built year, DWT (comma-formatted), and Length / Beam (shown only if at least one dimension is known).
• Last port: the port name + country, and ATD (actual time of departure) with an "ago" stamp.

Below the data sits a call-to-action card: "Full track history, port-call analytics & fleet tools are available to members" with Create a business account and Log in buttons, and a note that new accounts are reviewed. Press Escape or click the × / the dark backdrop to close.

Why it matters: this is the most generous free affordance on the site - enough identity and live position to confirm a vessel and where she sits, without an account. For full voyage history you upgrade.

The /about page - the methodology and positioning pitch

/about (the ABOUT_HTML template, titled "Why shipdata.net") is the page to send a colleague or counterparty who asks "what is this and can I trust the numbers?" Its top bar is intentionally minimal - just the logo and three links: Live map (→ /), Sign in, and a Register button.

• Hero: a pill with a glowing green dot, the live DBPI value (pulled from /api/market_index, shown as a skeleton until it loads) and a meta note that resolves to "hottest: <band> $X K/d" once the data arrives. The headline states the proposition plainly: freight intelligence "derived from vessel observability" - daily-hire rates across 11 DWT bands and 14 trading regions, computed from positions, draughts and voyage history (AIS plus a position feed), with no rate survey. Three CTAs: See live market index, Create a free account, Read methodology (deep-links to /market#methodology).
• Stat strip: six chips - 11 bands (coastal to VLOC), AIS + position feed, 14 regions (>98% of dry-bulk trade flow), 15 min refresh cadence, 0 rate surveys (positions only), and ~20,000 curated bulkers & MPP vessels.
• "What you get" grid: six cards - Live fleet map, Open tonnage board, Market analytics, Port congestion, Bunker prices, CII estimate - each spelling out the headline filters/outputs of that tool.
• "How we're different" comparison: a side-by-side table contrasting a generic ship-tracker (200,000+ mixed vessels, no open-tonnage board, no CII/tightness) against shipdata.net (~20,000 hand-curated dry-bulk/MPP/OHBS, predicted-open dates, per-ship CII/AER, no tankers/cruise/fishing).
• "Built for the chartering desk": two cards on live worldwide positions and voyage history (deduped per IMO, geofenced to ~10,000 ports/anchorages), then a closing "Try it - it's free" band reiterating that the map is open to all and members unlock the rest, with approvals "usually same business day."

Why it matters: this is where the trust argument lives - it states that the index is positions-derived and auditable, never an assessed market number, which is the differentiator a desk will want to verify before relying on the rates.

The grouped top navigation (content pages and the globe)

On every content page - and on the / globe - the same grouped navigation appears (built from the single source-of-truth list _NAV_GROUPS). Flat links sit inline; grouped links open a dropdown (look for the small ▾ caret) on hover or click, and the group containing your current page is highlighted in the accent colour. Clicking a group toggles it open; clicking anywhere else closes all open groups.

• Flat links: Map (/app, members), 3D Globe (/globe, free), News (/news, public) and Guides (/blog, public - this article library) and About (/about, public, the why-us page). Alerts (/alerts) is admin-only and stays hidden from the menu unless you are signed in as an admin.
• Fleet group: Ships (directory + owner lookup), My Fleet (saved vessels), Ballaster Radar and Fleet Optimizer (tonnage tools), Ship benchmark, and the public World fleet leaderboard.
• Markets group: Market (the public DBPI dashboard), FFA Reports™ (public), Trade flows and Cargo routes.
• Ports group: Ports directory, Congestion (anchorage queues), Distance (sea-route calculator) and Bunker prices (by port).
• Analytics group: Analytics (tightness, regional supply, speeds), Emissions (CII/AER).

Visibility rules: each leaf carries a feature key. Anonymous visitors see every feature as a teaser, except admin-only tools like Alerts, which stay hidden (gating happens server-side - clicking a gated item triggers a sign-up prompt); logged-in users only see items their account is entitled to; admins implicitly hold every key and see all of it, including the admin-only Alerts page.

Also in the top bar: a ◑ Theme button toggles light/dark (remembered in your browser via localStorage); a ← map shortcut jumps to /app; a contextual 📖 Guide link appears on a fixed set of pages (Market, Globe, Map, World fleet, Cargo routes, Tonnage/Radar, Ports, Congestion, Distance) pointing to the matching how-to article; and a 👤 your name link (to /account) plus Log out - replaced by Log in for anonymous visitors. Admins get (admin) appended to their name. The same grouped nav also renders, scoped differently, on the full-screen /app map bar.

The two search boxes - know which one you're using

shipdata.net has two separate search experiences that look similar but behave differently. Both accept the same kinds of query - the placeholder spells it out: Search ship name / IMO / MMSI / port / LOCODE / country / operator… - and both fire after you type at least two characters with a short debounce.

• The site-wide search (content pages + globe): the sticky #gsearch_top box wired to /api/search. Results come back grouped as ships, ports, owners and lanes, normalised into one list (up to 15 rows) with a plain text kind label on the left, the name, and a meta column. Routing: ships → /ship/IMO, ports → /port/CODE, operators → /fleet/slug, lanes → the lane page with band/load/disch params (lanes only appear when signed in), and country → a filtered /ships?country=… list. Press Enter to jump to the first result, Escape to dismiss.
• The public search (on /home): the #sq box wired to /api/public_search. Here each result carries a coloured category pill: SHIP (blue), PORT (green), OPERATOR (amber). Ships open the free snapshot modal in place (not a new page); ports route to /port/CODE (name · LOCODE · country); operators route to /fleet/slug with a ship count. The dropdown is lifted to the page body so it floats above the bunker marquee and map, and re-positions itself as you scroll.

Why it matters: this is the single quickest entry point in the product - name or IMO, port name or LOCODE, or operator name gets you to a full page (or a free snapshot on /home) in two keystrokes and a click, no menu-diving. Just remember the public box gives you the free modal, while the in-app box deep-links to full detail and lane pages.

The DBPI ticker and the site-wide footer

On most authenticated content pages a slim DBPI ticker is injected just under the top bar. It is suppressed on the Market page (redundant there), on the / globe homepage, on /home, and on the login/register/forgot/reset screens. The strip is one big clickable link to /market; it loads from /api/market_index and refreshes every 5 minutes.

• DBPI - the composite dry-bulk pressure index, shown large in the accent colour (as a skeleton until it loads). A ▲/▼ arrow with a delta appears once the value moves versus the previous reading - green up, red down - so you can read momentum.
• Cape / Pana / Supra / Handy - representative day-rates for the four headline segments, mapped to the 120-190K, 68-90K, 55-68K and 30-47K DWT bands respectively, formatted like $24.3K. Each is colour-coded by its LSR (load-supply ratio / tightness): red when tight (LSR ≥ 0.60), green when slack (LSR ≤ 0.40), amber in between.
• World LSR - the global load-supply ratio as a percentage, the single-number read on whether the market overall is tight or loose.
• ↗ live market - the accent-coloured cue reminding you the whole strip is clickable. The content is centred between two flex spacers and scrolls horizontally on narrow screens.

The footer (scrollable content pages, not /app): a slim four-column footer - a brand blurb, and Product (Live map, Why us, All ships, Bunker prices), Tools (Open tonnage, Port congestion, Market analytics, Distance, Cargo routes) and Account (Sign in, Create account, My Fleet) link columns - followed by a full legal Disclaimer (data is "as is / as available," not advice, use at your own risk) and a copyright line citing "~20,000 curated bulk & MPP vessels." The footer also lazy-loads /static/ui.js, which powers the ⌘K command palette, keyboard shortcuts, toasts and the admin-only CSV export.

Why it matters: the ticker is your at-a-glance market pulse on every working page - direction arrow for momentum, four segment rates colour-keyed by tightness, and one global LSR - and a single click drops you into the full Market view for the detail behind it.

Getting access - register, confirm your e-mail, then your trial

shipdata.net is a members product. The live 3D globe at the site root is free to explore, but the ship, market, fleet and analytics pages - and the Pricing page itself - open only to signed-in members.

How you get in:

1. Register at /register with your business e-mail (free providers such as gmail/hotmail are not accepted).
2. Confirm your e-mail. We send a one-time confirmation link; open it to verify your address. The link is valid for 48 hours.
3. Approval. Our team reviews and approves your account. You cannot sign in until it is approved.
4. Your 14-day trial begins the moment we approve you. During the trial you see exactly the features we enable for your account.
5. After the trial (or when a paid term ends) sign-in closes with a notice to contact us - message Sales on WhatsApp to continue.

Pricing is a one-time $10,000 setup fee plus $5,000 per vessel per year, billed by The Freight Report LLC. The full price breakdown and a fleet-size calculator are on the members-only Pricing page once you are signed in.

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