How to Track a Ship by Name (No MMSI Needed)

You know the name of the ship — maybe it's on a bill of lading, a booking confirmation, or an email from your carrier — but every tracking site seems to want a nine-digit MMSI number you've never heard of. Here's how to go from a vessel name to its live position in seconds.

Why tracking by name is harder than it should be

Most maritime portals are built around the MMSI number — the unique identifier each ship broadcasts over AIS. To use them you first have to look up the MMSI for your vessel, paste it into a search box, and hope you picked the right ship when several share a similar name.

The faster way: just ask by name

Ship Lens skips the lookup. You type the vessel's name in plain English and it resolves the name to the correct ship, fetches its latest AIS position, and shows it on a map — no MMSI required.

1. Open the Ship Lens side panel in Chrome.
2. Type something like “Where is the MAERSK SELETAR?”
3. Read the answer: position, course, speed, and how recent the fix is.

What you get back

A plain-language answer plus the ship's live position on a map. Crucially, every position carries a freshness badge so you know whether the fix is minutes or hours old — see how AIS tracking works for why that matters.

If you're tracking cargo specifically, our guide for shippers covers spotting delays before they hit your schedule.