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Vessel Hunter

For port agents

See every vessel coming in. Know who appoints.

Port agents and husbandry services compete on two things: knowing which vessels are coming into the ports they cover, and getting in front of the operator contact who appoints the agency before a competing agent does. Vessel Hunter combines a live approaching ports inbox with the verified appointing contact for every vessel, so an agency in Rotterdam or Singapore sees its full pipeline at 6am and knows who to call by 6:05.

Where port agents lose calls

A general cargo vessel inbound from West Africa, ETA Antwerp in 38 hours, last appointed agent unknown, technical management based out of Hamburg, operator a tramp charterer in Greece. Three port agents in Antwerp see the AIS track. Two of them call the technical manager. The third calls the actual operator, the charterer who controls the appointment, and wins the call.

That distinction, between the technical manager (who runs the ship) and the commercial operator (who appoints the agent), is the difference between a quote and an appointment, and it is the kind of signal that gets buried five tabs deep in Equasis. Vessel Hunter surfaces it on the dossier card and lines up the verified contact for the role you actually need.

The approaching ports inbox

Define the ports and terminals you cover. The inbox lists every vessel inbound, sorted by ETA, filtered by your fleet rules: by type, flag, tonnage, charterer, or operator. Each row carries the AIS track, the dossier card, the appointing contact with verified mobile and email, and the historical port call pattern that tells you whether this vessel typically calls weekly, monthly, or rarely.

Tap any row to open the full dossier: ownership tree, port state inspection record, last casualty event, current class standing, and the verified contact for each role (commercial, technical, procurement, agency). The 24/7 human support team is one call away if your duty agent needs to confirm a fact before quoting.

Beyond AIS for the inbound that goes dark

Some vessels, particularly in the dark fleet and sanctions touched segments, switch their AIS transponder off as they approach territorial waters. Most AIS tools lose the vessel at that point. Vessel Hunter does not: the beyond AIS reconstruction picks up the trail from satellite radar, port state filings, and bunker record signals, so the agency knows the vessel is still inbound, the likely berth window, and the operator behind it. Read about beyond AIS tracking.

What port agents alert on

  • Inbound ETA at the ports and terminals you cover: fired 72 hours out, then again at 24 hours and at berth.
  • Anchorage arrival: when a vessel drops anchor in your port’s outer roads, you have a quoting window.
  • Operator change: a fleet changing operator typically changes its port agent within 6 months.
  • Casualty alerts: a vessel needing emergency repair, surveyor attendance, or off hire support inside your port catchment.
  • Sanctions and dark fleet flags: agency declines and compliance triage with verified curated screening lists.

Compliance, audit, and the regulator angle

Port agency work is increasingly compliance loaded. Vessel Hunter ships with curated sanctions and dark fleet lists maintained in house and updated on the same cycle as the contact data, plus a full audit log of every query and alert for SOC 2 evidence and regulator review. A custom DPA and SSO are available on request.

Pricing and onboarding

Live in under 24 hours. Most port agency offices run two to six seats at the standard $2,500/user/month rate. Multi seat and fleet pricing terms on request. See pricing.

Also read shipyards and service providers, or see every platform feature.