Craft associated with a parent ship (98MIDxxxx)

What it identifies

A 98 prefix identifies a craft that belongs to a parent ship — a tender, a workboat, a lifeboat or rescue boat, or a pilot launch operating from a mother ship.

How to read it

These craft move around their parent and usually come and go with it. The MID follows the parent ship’s administration.

Does it give a flag?

Not a flag of its own — the MID in digits 3 to 5 follows the parent ship’s administration.

Every vessel page on this site works this out before printing a flag. Where the MMSI is not a ship station, the page names the kind of station instead — a wrong flag is worse than an honest “this is a coast station”.

All MMSI formats

Have a number to check? The MMSI decoder applies these rules to any nine digits. For the background, read Reading an MMSI.