Track a vessel

Goal. Find a specific vessel, pin it on your globe, and get an alert when it enters or leaves a port.

Setup

Atlas account with OSINT plan tier (vessel data is gated).
MARINETRAFFIC_API_KEY configured in the backend (admin task; see Quick Start).
Globe panel open with the AIS layer enabled.

Open the globe. Sidebar → globe icon, or press g then g.
Enable the vessel layer. In the right rail layer toggles, ensure AIS (vessels) is on. Press v to toggle.
Filter for your vessel. In the sub-bar, type the vessel name or MMSI into the Name / MMSI field (subbar.nameMmsiFilter in frontend/src/i18n/en.json). The globe filters live as you type.
Click the pin to focus. The right rail shows the detail card — name, MMSI, flag, current position, speed, heading, last update.
Save the subset. In the sub-bar, switch the All / Saved toggle to Saved, then add the vessel to your saved subset via the bookmark icon on the detail card.
Set an alert. From the detail card, choose Watch port-of-call. Pick the port (or radius around a coordinate). Save.
Optional: generate intel. Click Generate intel (detail.generateIntel) — this hands the vessel context to AI chat and summarizes recent activity.

The vessel pin colored to indicate live (status.live) or delayed (status.delayed) telemetry.
A row in your saved vessels subset that survives session restarts.
An entry in Alerts under "active" with the rule you just configured.

Multiple vessels — repeat the filter step with different names; each save adds to the subset.
Fleet-wide — instead of vessel-level alerts, set a port-traffic alert: pick a port, alert on any new arrival above N tonnes.
Historical replay — open Timeline & events and scrub backward to see where the vessel has been.

AIS data updates depend on MarineTraffic coverage. Coastal traffic is dense; mid-ocean updates can lag by minutes to hours. See Data delays & limits.
"Last update" timestamps that drift past 24 hours typically mean the vessel has switched off its transponder — not necessarily that it's stopped moving.