[Platforms] US Navy Pennants and Ship Names

Wed Dec 16 13:16:27 GMT 2015

Hi Roy,

The inconsistencies where ships have title as part of the name reflect a manpower issue - not a disagreement. At ICES we have been slowly updating a number of attributes: titles are being removed from the names and put in the title attribute, attributes such as MMSI or drill ship which are reported in the notes are being moved/entered in the relevant attribute field, etc. We appreciate you (and others!) entering any information as it helps us prioritise. But it takes time to handle these changes/additions manually.

As for the pennant, we are not following any standard because we are not aware of standards. So, any sources documenting the standard for a country should be sent to accessions at ices.dk<mailto:accessions at ices.dk>.

Thanks and best regards,
Marilynn

----------------------------------------------------------
Marilynn Sørensen
Data Manager
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
H.C. Andersens Boulevard 44-46, 1553 Copenhagen V.
Denmark

marilynn.sorensen at ices.dk
Direct tel: +45 33 38 67 20
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From: Donald W. Collins <donald.collins at noaa.gov<mailto:donald.collins at noaa.gov>>
Sent: 15 December 2015 20:17
To: Lowry, Roy K.; platforms at mailman.nerc-liv.ac.uk<mailto:platforms at mailman.nerc-liv.ac.uk>; NODC.Services at noaa.gov<mailto:NODC.Services at noaa.gov>
Subject: Re: [Platforms] US Navy Pennants and Ship Names

Hi, Roy, et al,
See inline comments below...
On 12/13/15 12:34 PM, Lowry, Roy K. wrote:

Dear All,

I am currently in the process of adding attributes for several hundred US Navy Vessels into the ICES system as a part of the synchronisation of the ICES list with the C17 list in NVS.

This work has raised a couple of issues:

1) Pennants. US Navy practice is to only carry the numeric portion of the pennant on the hull but this is prefixed by an alphanumeric classification in all references to the pennant. For example, USS Nimitz has '68' painted on her hull, but has the classification 'CVN' to indicate that she is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. However, the syntax used for pennant references varies between sources. Wikipedia hyphenates the two parts, such as 'CVN-68', but what I would regard as more naval sources such as UK Admiralty naval callsign lists and ship Facebook pages (e.g. https://www.facebook.com/cvn68), use a space such as 'CVN 68'. I am currently following the navies and standardising on spaces, but before I get too far down the path (I've put 30-40 into the system so far) does anybody have strong reasons for a hyphen to be included.

In addition to relatively authoritative self-managed sources (e.g., the USS Nimitz facebook page), I noticed that other 'authoritative sources', such as compendia published by Jane's (e.g., Jane's Fighting Ships), use a space as the separator not a hyphen. I agree with your approach and would follow the convention established in more authoritative and curated sources than Wikipedia and not use a hyphen. I will alert you if I am able to find a US Navy source that says otherwise.

2) Whoever set up the US Navy codes in ICES in the 1990s was fond of brevity and certainly didn't approve of writing out Christian names in full when these were a part of the ship name. For example the ship widely listed as Forrest Sherman is 'F. Sherman'. This has been the cause of a significant number of alerts put on the ICES system by Frank Sejer. I am systematically working through ship class lists (e.g. Forrest Sherman destroyers) which makes this contradiction glaringly obvious. I strongly feel that the names should be expanded to match the published class lists and am therefore putting name change proposals into the ICES system. I am also proposing removal of titles from names to the title attribute (e.g. USS Normandy to Normandy).  Does anybody disagree?

As noted, there was a now-abandoned practice in the late-1990s and early-2000s to insert 'USS' into the name field for US Navy vessels. I've been slowly updating these entries to separate USS from the Name. I agree with making this change and to making any other necessary changes to update names as necessary. However, be advised that the staff time allocated in US NCEI (former NODC) for managing this information is minimal, so there will be delays in getting the US NCEI information to match ICES.
Cheers,
Don Collins

Cheers, Roy.

Please note that I partially retired on 01/11/2015. I am now only working 7.5 hours a week and can only guarantee e-mail response on Wednesdays, my day in the office. All vocabulary queries should be sent to enquiries at bodc.ac.uk<mailto:enquiries at bodc.ac.uk>. Please also use this e-mail if your requirement is urgent.

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