From a broadcast to a boat at sea
Every vessel on the map sails its own positions, one an hour, as Global Fishing Watch heard them. What we add is drawing: where to join the dots, where not to, and how to stack a week into columns. Each choice is named here.
From Global Fishing Watch
3,32,298 positions
each vessel's position in each hour it was heard, at about 1 km, with its name, number, flag and kind, for India's two zones (the mainland's and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands')
Ours
3 rules
when two positions are joined, how a week becomes columns, and how the radar's detections are grouped. Global Fishing Watch gives none of these.
Refreshed
daily
every morning at 09:30 IST, the newest seven days Global Fishing Watch has published. Its data run a few days behind: this week ends 21 Oct 2026, 4 days before it was read.
Joining the dots
a vessel is drawn moving only between hours it was heard
Three vessels' week, as heard
A tick is an hour with a position. The bar is where the map draws the vessel moving, straight from one position to the next. Where it went unheard for more than 2 hours there is no bar: the map does not guess where it was.
Silences not drawn
9,992
times in the week a vessel went unheard for more than 2 hours and was heard again
Heard once
137
vessels with a single hour in the week: drawn as a point, never a track
Nets' own beacons
left out
Global Fishing Watch marks buoys that broadcast from drifting nets as gear. They are not vessels, and the map does not draw them.
The wake
16 hours
behind each moving vessel, fading. The week plays at a day a minute.
The columns
where the week was spent
One column, one cell
The sea is cut into cells 0.08 degrees on a side, about 9 km. A column's height is the hours vessels were heard in its cell over the week, on a squeezed scale so the ports do not hide the open sea. The tallest stand at the ports. This scale is ours.
Kinds, grouped
The kind is the one Global Fishing Watch gives each vessel; the grouping into five colours is ours.
Flags
from the vessel's own radio number
Where a flag comes from
A transponder's nine-digit number (MMSI) begins with three digits for the country that issued it. Global Fishing Watch reads the flag from those. A wrong or borrowed number gives a wrong flag; 189 vessels in the week have none.
Foreign
On this map, foreign is any flag but India's. A foreign fishing boat is one Global Fishing Watch lists as a fishing vessel. Whether it fished inside the line is its model's reading of how the boat moved: hours it counts as fishing are on the Guide.
What does not broadcast
radar detections no broadcast accounts for
Seen by radar
The European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 satellites pass with a radar that sees hulls through cloud and night. Global Fishing Watch finds vessels in those pictures and matches each to a broadcast where one was there. The unmatched are drawn here.
Grouped
154 contacts
Detections are counted in cells a tenth of a degree wide; cells within three of each other join one contact. Ours. 24 lie inside India's line.
Named by the nearest light
A contact is named by the place of the nearest light on Deepstambh's list and its distance from the coast. A place name says where, not who.
Over the month
22 Sept to 21 Oct 2026, India's zones and its six neighbours'
Encounters
168
two vessels close together and slow, away from port, as Global Fishing Watch marks them: how catch, fuel or crew can pass between ships at sea
Waiting
1,614
carriers, cargo ships, tankers and survey ships lingering in one place (loitering, in its word)
Fishing boats
626
with fishing events in India's two zones over the month
Gone silent
8
long breaks in a broadcast at sea, as Global Fishing Watch marks them
What the map cannot show
Small boats
Most of India's fishing boats are under 20 m and carry no AIS. They appear only as radar contacts, and then only when large enough to see.
Today
The week ends a few days back. Global Fishing Watch publishes positions a few days after they are heard.
Intent
A position, a flag and a kind are what a vessel said. Nothing here says a vessel broke a law.