How many ships are in the Arctic?

How many ships are in the Arctic?  That's a great question isn't it?  We're not aware of an accurate number of vessels sailing above 66 degrees latitude so we embarked on a rather unscientific study of our own.  Querying the Amver database of position reports, we plotted position reports for ships sailing in the Arctic for a 45 day period.  We discovered there were 3,940 reports!  Here is how they looks on a map.



While not inclusive of all vessel traffic in the Arctic, it certainly shows a significant number of ships and routes. More importantly, it should encourage search and rescue authorities to request Amver data when managing search and rescue cases in the Arctic.

If you want to know more about Amver and the Arctic you can read our previous Arctic related posts here and here.

Do your ships sail in Arctic waters? If so you should enroll in the Amver system.