T+0 min · Tier 3 only
A merchant vessel reports an approach by a small skiff in the Gulf of Aden. A gCaptain article covers it within the hour, citing the vessel's owner.
Every entry on the board is checked against a fixed rule before it's marked confirmed. Here's the rule, the three tiers of sources behind it, and a worked example of how it plays out.
A single trade press article isn't enough on its own. Neither is a single unverified social media post, however convincing. We wait for either an official body to confirm it, or for two separate, independent Tier 2/3 sources to agree.
Two sources count as independent only when they rely on materially different underlying evidence - separate vessel-tracking data, separate witnesses, separate official communications or imagery - not when they're separate publications repeating the same original report or the same shipowner statement. Several outlets citing one press release, or several accounts reposting one original claim, count as one source, not two.
If a source says "reported," we don't rewrite it as "confirmed." If a source - including a Tier 1 one - says it's still investigating or can't yet confirm a detail, the board says so too, rather than rounding that up because the source carries weight elsewhere. An official publication is not automatically treated as independent confirmation of every fact it contains; we show the source's own level of certainty, not a stronger one.
Not all sources carry the same weight, and we don't pretend otherwise. Each card lists the sources it relies on, and each reported incident is marked confirmed or reported under the confirmation rule above, so you can judge the strength of the evidence yourself rather than take our word for it. Official sources are shown as buttons rather than plain text on purpose: during an active incident, go to these exact links rather than searching, so you don't accidentally land on a spoofed or fake account.
Coast guards, navies, and international maritime bodies. These carry significant evidentiary weight, but an official publication isn't automatically the same as independent confirmation of every fact it reports - a Tier 1 source can itself be relaying a third-party report it hasn't verified, and we preserve that distinction rather than smoothing over it. JMIC, specifically, is a Combined Maritime Forces capability distributed through UKMTO, not a standalone agency with its own independent collection.
Independent researchers who geolocate, timestamp, and cross-check incidents using publicly available imagery and data, and who publish their evidence rather than just their conclusions. Tier 2 status is source-specific and event-specific, not a blanket pass - a given post from one of these accounts still has to show its own work to count.
How a source is added to or removed from Tier 2: a source is added only if it publishes maritime-relevant evidence with its method shown, such as geolocated imagery of vessels or AIS or satellite analysis, and if the material is its own work and not a repost of other accounts. A source is removed if it repeatedly passes on claims without showing evidence, or does not correct its errors.
Wire services and trade publications with maritime desks and a track record of correction when they get something wrong.
Some categories of otherwise excellent reporting don't appear on this site at all, not because the reporting is weak, but because we can't redistribute it responsibly.
If a development is only reported through one of these channels, we wait until it surfaces independently through a Tier 1, 2, or 3 source before publishing anything about it.
Illustrative - not a real incident.
A merchant vessel reports an approach by a small skiff in the Gulf of Aden. A gCaptain article covers it within the hour, citing the vessel's owner.
One Tier 3 source alone isn't enough. The board would still show this as unconfirmed at this point.
UKMTO issues an advisory referencing the same position and time. That's an official confirmation on its own, which clears our bar.
The entry is published as confirmed, with both the gCaptain and UKMTO sources cited.
If UKMTO hadn't issued anything, we'd instead wait for a second independent Tier 2 or Tier 3 source, for example, Reuters running its own report with a different vessel-tracking source, before marking it confirmed.
A real case from the board, not illustrative.
UKMTO reports, with high confidence via third-party reporting, that a tanker transiting inbound through the Strait of Hormuz was struck by an unknown projectile. UKMTO's own wording: "an investigation into more details about what occurred, and the status of the crew and vessel, is ongoing."
UKMTO is Tier 1, and JMIC's own incidents list for this period logs it as a confirmed attack - so the board shows it as real. But we don't fill in what UKMTO hasn't yet said. The status of the crew and vessel stays marked as under investigation until UKMTO or JMIC updates it, even though the underlying source is already our highest tier. "Confirmed" here means the attack happened, not that every detail about it is settled.
We show the disagreement rather than pick a side. If Tier 1 and Tier 3 sources conflict on details like vessel name, position, or cause, we note both versions and flag the discrepancy rather than presenting a single, falsely tidy account. We don't resolve a factual dispute by defaulting to whichever source has the higher tier - a higher tier earns more weight, not an automatic win.