Use constraints: Data can be used freely given that the source is cited. 1) The locations of the vessels are based on the homeport announced and are not precise (even more so since the vessels are often out at sea). Also, it should be noted that when viewing at a small scale (zoomed out), the vessel symbols in a certain port will unavoidably cluster and eventually merge. 2) Some of the characters in the place - and vessel names do not show correctly on different systems. We have attempted to add instructions concerning these characters in the end of each of the data files. These characters are: - ä : a with umlauts - ö : o with umlauts - å : a with a circle - ø : o with a slash - ü : u with umlauts.

The information about vessels with fire fighting capacity was gathered from the states surrounding Baltic Sea (along with information about other emergency capacities) by HELCOM and delivered to Finnish Environment Center as text files (tables). These were transformed to a shape file, using the homeport mentioned as the original location of each vessel. The dataset was further edited in order to situate the vessels to the sea in front of the ports. Information is checked and updated as new information comes available. In 2005 the dataset projection was converted by HELCOM from the original World Mercator projection to ETRS 1989 LAEA. In March-April 2008, Estonian, Polish and Russian details were updated.