THE MIRAMAR INDEX

 

 

THE MIRAMAR INDEX WENT ONLINE ON 14 SEPTEMBER 2006

 

You can access it at www.miramarshipindex.org.nz

 

 

Rodger Haworth’s MIRAMAR Ship Index has gone online with more than 330,000 names covering more than 207,000 powered ships of 100 tons or more, both merchant and naval, of all countries. Rodger Haworth is a co-author of the Starke/Schell series of ship registers. Rodger’s involvement in the researching and writing of ship’s histories dates back to 1957 as a member of the World Ship Society.

 

MIRAMAR seeks to provide an index to all powered ships, merchant and naval, worldwide, of approximately 100 tons and above but sailing ships only if they were powered at some stage in their lives. It is supported by the NZ Ship and Marine Society. Access is free.

 

You can search on name, official number or the index’s ID number. Generally, ships of 100 tons and above existing in 1969 and later will have an LR/IMO number and if so this is almost invariably the MIRAMAR ID. Some ID’s are interim.

 

A search will give you a screen of names from the name index showing numerical identifiers, Year (built), tonnage, Change (year of name change), generally the original owner and, where applicable, the volume and page reference to the Starke and Schell registers, to which the MIRAMAR Index forms a master index. Selecting a record from the search results will take you to fuller information including when and where built, builder, all names, some physical information and fate. Scroll to the bottom of this page or click again on Send to return to the search results.

 

Information is included about the years covered by the Starke/Schell registers. For further information and availability enter Starke and Schell as separate searches on the World Ship Society publications search page at http://www.worldshipsociety.org/publications/bookquery.html

 

A particularly helpful feature is that a search on a name gives you variations it. To get an idea of how it works experiment on a common ship name like Elizabeth. The results screen will offer you not just that but also Atlantic Elizabeth, Cape Elizabeth, Elizabeth Conway, Queen Elizabeth etc – but not Elisabeth.

 

You need to be careful when selecting a name later than the ship’s first name from the search results. You should be able to tell when this is the case because there will be a year in the Change column but not against an original entry. To get the detailed record with all names, copy and paste the ID number into the ID search box and delete the name from the name search box and click Send again. This will give you a results screen with all names of that particular ship. Select the one with no entry in the Change column for a detailed screen with all names and the year of change. For example, the “Amy Elizabeth” ID 7018434 will give you all seven names. Select the one (Susann Von Bargen) that does not have an entry in the Change column for a detailed screen including all names starting with the first.

 

The official number column contains numbers of several jurisdictions including port numbers. A low number could even be Italian or Chilean, Swedish or Japanese as easily as it could be British or American. Official numbers of 200,000 and above are nation-specific (200,000’s = American, 300,000’s British). Official numbers in the range 162,000 to 199,999 are almost certainly British as the United States issued numbers in this range only to vessels with neither engines nor sails, though some doubtless had engines added later in life.

 

The index is designed as a names’ index rather than an official number index but within limits you can use MIRAMAR in this way. For vessels known to have had an official number at some stage and which never had an LR/IMO number, the ship’s first official number is used as the basis of the ID number in a nation-specific way that I and some others are also using to “internationalise” official numbers in the interests of standardisation and potential future database linkability.

 

British official numbers are added to 1,000,000, American to 2,000,000, Swedish to 3,000,000 and Japanese to 4,000,000 so you can tell from ID’s in this form which nationality it relates to. The name of the original owner may also provide a clue to nationality as may the builder though not in all cases. If a record has an official number other than the first or that upon which its ID number is based it must relate to a nationality other than the first because in theory (though not invariably in practice) a ship reverting to its original nationality would revert to its original official number.

 

The Mariners’ List official number indexes at http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/ON1.htm can be used to confirm British official numbers and the American official numbers of powered vessels that both. Some ships may also appear in the below 100,000 index at http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/IBON-INDEX.html Mariners’ List users may thus get the best of both worlds by using these indexes together with MIRAMAR. Remember that it is generally only the ML below 100,000 index that includes sailing ships. There are only a little more than 100 small vessels in the ML 100,000+ index that are not also in MIRAMAR.

 

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