my favourite new arrival today to the Suez Canal party is this incredibly conspicuous Russian warship labelled as an oil tanker that’s just anchored amongst the stranded cargo ships. chillin.
realized what the map screenshot is reminding me of glgkdkkdkfjdksj
“russian warship 545 is unhappy”
“well life isn’t fucking fair is it russian warship 545”
Okay this just got INTERESTING
So I went back to check on my pal Russian Warship 545 (registration name KOLA), and being unable to find the red dot in the area, thought it had moved on. Curious as to when and where to, I ran a search on Vesselfinder for the name “Russian Warship 545”.
No results found.
“Okay, that’s fair. Maybe you can’t search for naval vessels by name. National security and all.” I said to myself. Then I remembered that I’d screenshotted the ID number (see above), so I ran a search for that instead.
This is when shit got weird.
So I mentioned just now that while the vessel showed up earlier today under the AIS tracking title “Russian Vessel 545”, the legal registration name listed at the bottom of its details page was “KOLA”. This isn’t that weird in and of itself — I was poking around home on the map earlier today, and found Canadian naval vessels with tracking titles like “Canadian Warship 707” and then the actual vessel name (HMCS FancyName or what have ye) listed as the registration name along with the flag country.
I mentioned also that I couldn’t find Russian Warship 545’s distinctive red dot (red is the colour for search and rescue, coast guard, and naval vessels in Vessel Finder) in the Red Sea anchorage field outside the canal when I went to check up on it.
So imagine my surprise when I type the ID number for “Russian Warship 545” into the search, and am told IT IS STILL LOCATED IN THE RED SEA ANCHORAGE.
Huh???
But not ONLY that.
It has now been switched to an ORANGE tanker vessel dot, and is showing up with “KOLA” as its AIS tracking name, looking for all intents and purposes like a regular oil tanker:
Except for the fact that when you open the details page on Vessel Finder, the image attached is VERY MUCH STILL A RUSSIAN WARSHIP:
And the specs and details are all the same as earlier, including being owned by what is still listed (due to the 1967 manufacturing date) as, I shit you not, “Soviet Navy”:
However!!!
On further investigation via Marine Tracker, I’ve found what seems to be a much less “stripped from Wikipedia”, and much less impressive, image of our friend Russian Warship 545 (which is still listed as the AIS name on Marine Tracker):
This page on Baltic Shipping also associates similar pictures with the same ID numbers, further corroborating this and giving a bit more extra backstory about the builder etc. “Kola” is listed as an Altay-class Russian military tanker with a matching 1967 build date on this List of Active Russian Military Vessels, and was actively doing stuff for the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean within the last two years (x) (x).
So.
My best guess at an explanation for all this weirdness?
Creaky old Soviet-built oil tanker KOLA, owned by Russian military, was doing regular oil-getting business in the area.
Said oil tanker is listed on some AIS records in the same manner as most military-owned vessels, “[nationality] warship [hull #]”, and with a red military ID dot.
Somebody working for Vessel Finder is really lazy about attaching a database image to the profile for KOLA. (Interestingly enough, reverse image search turned up no other instances of the warship image used on the listing).
Then, this week, Ever Given does the world’s worst parallel parking job and blocks up the Suez canal.
KOLA, gone to go get oil and bring it back to the fleet, is now stranded with many other oil tankers in the middle of the Red Sea, unable to pass back up through to the Black Sea or wherever the hell she was going.
At some point, perhaps somebody involved in the control/management of KOLA had the thought, possibly while sitting around at anchor for two days twiddling thumbs and playing cards, “hey, you don’t think our AIS designation would make us look like we’re up to some really sketchy shit out here, do you? given that hundreds if not thousands of random people are looking at vessel tracking sites right now?”
“Hm. Shit.”
(Alternatively, somebody onboard is killing time on their phone looking at the shipping carnage and notices their bright red tracking dot and alarming name).
Phone calls are made/things are updated and Creaky old Soviet-built military-owned oil tanker KOLA hastily has its AIS display name updated to read as its registration name instead of “Russian Warship 545”, now with an orange oil tanker classification marker.
This change has the unintended result of making them look EXPONENTIALLY sketchier than they did before.
ALTERNATIVELY: Less funny version, it may just be a glitch in Vessel Finder’s software that gets triggered by the two different names and the conflicting classifications. When I went to look at it again just a minute ago, we were back to a red indicator and “Russian Warship 545”:
Bottom line: do I think that anything freaky or untoward is ACTUALLY happening with this vessel? Not really.
Do I find this all EXTREMELY entertaining? You bet your ass I do.
Highly recommend just fucking around on vessel tracking sites for a few hours. Gosh what a fun time to be had.
unfortunately in my fact check I spent so long researching this tough and dependable 54-year-old Soviet naval refuelling vessel that I’ve accidentally become weirdly fond of it. she’s a sturdy old girl. I wish her well
Okay…I have to add onto this because things get really interesting and even funnier.
So, when I first heard about this. I did some research.
“Russian Warship 545″ 545 would usually refer to the hull designation. This is the number you see on the bow of a naval ship. It’s used for visual identification while at sea. So, a quick search on the internet DID identify a ship of the Russian navy with this designation.
But…it’s not the Kola…
The Ship with the Designation 545 is actually a Corvette. Named the Stoyky.
It’s weird though…as the Hull Designations should, under no circumstances EVER be changed. As the logistics system of the Russian navy would be fucked up to kingdom come.
So, why is the Kola being identified as Russian warship 545?? And all of it’s tracking stuff is suddenly changed? Weird huh?
Until…I did just a little more research on the Kola.
Turns out, the Kola was deployed not to long ago in Naval terms.
On Dec. 16th of 2020, the Kola was deployed as a part of a fleet detachment for training operations in the Indian, Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans. This detachment consisted of 3 vessels.
1. The Kola. Brought along for supply and support I would assume.
2. A sea tug, the Yakov Grebelsky.
3. A Corvette. The main ship of this detachment, this is the ship that would be doing all the training. All parts of the crew aboard are going to be training in different simulations and just representing the Russian Navy. Identified as the Stoyky.
…..The Stoyky.
A Russian Warship, with the Hull Designation of 545.
Here is the Russian defense ministry’s article about the Detachment’s deployment.
So there is the possibility that we are looking at an entire Fleet Detachment. That is sitting there in the red sea.
Or the possibility that they got separated somehow.
Or…that there is no sign of the Yakov Grebelsky or Stoyky, and they somehow just ditched the Kola.
Which gets even funnier, because apparently right around the time the suez canal first got blocked off. The Kola and another vessel got into a light collision.
So all in all. Our poor dearest Kola either got ditched, cut off, or is…in actuality hanging out with the rest of the detachment in the red sea and we can only see the Kola.
Either way, this is the most hilarious development.
OHHHHH that would TOTALLY explain the *picture* though!!!! The original incorrect picture is probably a photo of the Corvette!
Somebody whose ask I think I lost sent me this article from early February about Kola and Stoiky (and I think it mentions the tug as well near the end) transiting down through the canal in the first place, I assume this week was supposed to be the return journey. Maybe the tug moved on to work somewhere else?
If I had to hazard a guess, either Kola and Stoiky are sharing one AIS signal (I don’t think that’s a thing??), OR there’s been some sort of confusion (possibly human error) in a logging system somewhere that, when processing both of the vessels together as they passed through somewhere, ended up accidentally labelling Kola with Stoiky’s photo and hull number.
So I’m actually inclined to think that Vessel Finder (which I’m told by people in the notes is visually super-glitchy at the best of times because of how much data it has to handle) has somehow ended up turning the AIS signal for both ships (Kola and Stoiky) into only ONE display point/readout — but it does know geographically that both of them are there. Here’s why I say that:
Here is where Kola is currently anchored, in a berth next to what looks like an empty anchor berth:
Earlier today, I noticed something that struck me as weird when I was looking at Kola’s tracking line of recent movement, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time other than “huh, glitchy”.
On vessels that are mostly sitting still or anchored (like the Ever Given lol), the tracking line that shows the last couple of hours of movement mostly moves in small overlapping circles right underneath where the vessel is.
That is uh, not what Kola’s track does:
(The red dot on the right there is me selecting a point on the track) Soooo Kola’s track basically looks like she’s teleporting lol. Jumping back and forth across that distance so quickly that there are no progress dots in between, but still keeping that registered movement speed (seen in the blue box) at 0kts.
This morning, I thought that weirdness must just be a variance/glitch in how the tracker is picked up by satellite — like how you can sometimes watch your personal dot on Google Maps move around while you’re standing still. I assumed that Kola wasn’t really moving much (listed as anchored, 0kts), the calibration of the geo-tracker was just poor and resulted in the vessel signal “jumping” back and forth between two points and creating these lines.
But then I thought about your “two vessels, one weird hybrid AIS display on our screens” thing. And I thought about it a little more. And then I turned the nautical chart overlay back on:
And OH. The other end of that super-fast back and forth and back and forth tracking pattern between two completely still states lines up DIRECTLY with the centre of the neighbouring anchorage point.
So. If I had to theorize (in a semi-informed manner, based on the evidence at hand):
I would bet that BOTH Kola and the Corvette Stoiky (aka the elusive Russian Warship 545) are present here, but for reasons inexplicable to me (and possibly it just comes down to Program Is Hella Glitchy, or a weird method of entering their data, who knows), Vessel Finder (and by the looks of it, Marine Traffic too) is using the SAME ID number (6720004) for BOTH ships, resulting in them being combined into a weird hybrid profile that VesselFinder reads from which has:
1 photo (of a boat I’d bet my pants is the Corvette Stoiky or a similar model)
1 registered name (KOLA)
1 set of specifications (the ones for KOLA)
1 little cartoon ship marker (tied to the left-side geographic signal)
1 vessel class name (“oil products tanker”)
2 possible display names (“KOLA” and “Russian Warship 545”)
2 colour classifications (service vessel red and tanker orange)
2 geolocation signals (one signal coming from that left anchor point where the ship marker sits, and signal two coming from the right anchor point where the track marks point to).
When the program is reading from the data profile, it seems to be displaying all of the things on that list that only have 1 as constants, and then for everything where there are 2 (data from BOTH vessels), it simply jumps back and forth between reading from one, then the other, and back and forth. Probably every time the map refreshes itself or something. I think Marine Traffic might be doing the exact same thing, but with a photo of Kola instead of Stoiky.
Again, this is just a theory, but its the only thing I can currently think of that explains everything we’ve seen here so far!
Either through a glitch in the system, or an error in human entry, or a deliberate choice to register them under a combined profile with the idea they are not to be separated (perhaps in some misguided attempt to simplify registration), I think what we are seeing is a pair of ships, showing up as one single ship profile which has two names, two geolocations, and two class designations, and is flipping back and forth between those data sources based on whichever it picks up.
tl;dr: My new running theory is we’re seeing two ships which travel together, with two names, two geolocation signals, two classifications, grouped under one (1) profile and ID number, resulting in the program inconsistently displaying the duplicate values as it tries to represent two different vessels with a single visual datapoint and a single profile page.
And, lol, when I went back to look again and check something between getting those first couple screenshots, guess who’s back to the old tricks again… :)
God I’ve gotten so much serotonin out of this problem-solving challenge, along with the stress of a trillion notifications. But this has been….. fun??
In Conclusion:
I have a kind-of explanation: the identification number being given for both ships is the IMO number for the Kola. An IMO (International Maritime Organisation) number is an identifier given to every single ship build when their keel is laid, and while the names, owners and callsigns may change, the IMO number stays the same.
There is one notable exception: warships (at least in Russia) are not given an IMO number. So my best guess is that for the purposes of going through the Suez, the warship is borrowing the IMO number of the ship it’s escorting, since it doesn’t have one of its own.
Eyyyyyy thank you @punalippulaiva ! That sounds like a key piece of the mystery to me!
Update: Sometimes you can see both!
This morning when I looked on Vessel Finder, I could now see the mixed signal/profile for KOLA/Russian Warship 545 (Stoiky) in its original position, but ALSO a “satellite AIS only” second signal sitting on that second mooring buoy, classed as SAR/Military:
“Satellite AIS only” means that the vessel can only be picked up by the more powerful and wide ranging AIS tracking of satellites, vs standard terrestrial AIS which is done with transponders pinging from shore. Most of the signals we see on the free version of Vessel Finder are terrestrial AIS, and sometimes the site can tell us “hey, I know something is here via satellite, but you’ll have to pay a fee if you wanna know more than that”. You do have to pay a hefty annual subscription fee to access more detailed data from objects tracked by satellite AIS than “there’s a boat here”, so I can’t see any more info than this.
This diagram on Marine Traffic sums up the difference pretty simply (Marine Traffic also shows two satellite AIS signals hanging out in the correct spots, but doesn’t let free users see more info about them):
So Kola and Stoiky still have a mixed profile for terrestrial AIS, but the satellite AIS system does know there’s a second ship physically there (probably still with the shared IMO number).
Aaaaand it’s obviously not the most consistent satellite signal, bc while I was looking at the map that second dot from satellite AIS winked out of existence again lol:
To the person somewhere in the notes who said these vessel tracking sites are glitchy as all fuck: no kidding, huh?
