For those of you who are new to ship tracking, I thought I'd put together a dummies tutorial, since I've finally kinda gotten the hang of it. More advanced trackers - please feel free to add info that you think is missing or correct what you feel is wrong.
First off, BMW primarily uses a company called Wallenius Wilhelmsen (aka WW), and the WW website provides good basic info like schedules and even cargo tracking by ID. This is a good starting point once you know your car has been assigned to a WW ship.
But, BMW also uses other companies like KLine (or "NYKLine"), whose website is not as informative as the WW website, but still gives you enough to get started.
1 - Get the ship assignment info from either BMW customer relations (1-800 number in North America) or your sales/client advisor. Get the shipping company, VIN number of your car, and vessel name. They will also give you a projected ETA at your local port.
2 - If you're on a WW ship, I believe you can verify that your car is onboard by entering the VIN number as the cargo ID, on the WW website. NYKLine, to my knowledge, does not have this capability online. Note that it may take a day or two once the ship has set sail, for the system to actually show that your car is onboard. You don't need this step (you can trust BMW customer relations when they say your car is on this ship), but for extra peace of mind, this is good to do.
3 - Given the assignment info from BMW, get the ship's schedule (usually a PDF file) from the shipping company's website. This will tell you all the stops your ship will make, and a more accurate ETA at your local port. Note that if the ship gets ahead of schedule, this PDF can be updated over time. My ship is currently one day ahead of schedule. Check for updates.
4 - When the ship is close to land, you will be able to track it (presumably by radar ???) on http://ift.tt/rtbMN8. Go there and enter your ship's name to get tracking info.
5 - When your ship is away from land, satellite tracking is the only option. This requires that you either sign up for a free trial (or pay, which you won't do) of a satellite tracking account . I use and recommend the site http://ift.tt/1oU4ree. Note that there are many types of accounts on this site, so make sure it's the satellite tracking account. They provide detailed current and historical information. Note - the free trials last only a week, I think. Just create new accounts every week :D
6 - If your ship does a crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, e.g. for US West coast deliveries, it will go through the Panama canal. The Panama canal has live webcams available here: http://ift.tt/1vGmEvS, so you can see your ship up close. The ship will go through a series of "locks" (basically, some sort of raised platform, I think). The webcam that gives you the closest view of the ship is the one at the Miraflores locks. This is close to the Pacific end of the canal.
I have written a simple program to poll the webcam every 30 seconds (which is how often the image gets updated), so I can capture a poor man's video of my ship going through part of the canal. If you're interested in this, lemme know, and I can try to help you with this.
That's pretty much it. Feel free to ask me questions.
First off, BMW primarily uses a company called Wallenius Wilhelmsen (aka WW), and the WW website provides good basic info like schedules and even cargo tracking by ID. This is a good starting point once you know your car has been assigned to a WW ship.
But, BMW also uses other companies like KLine (or "NYKLine"), whose website is not as informative as the WW website, but still gives you enough to get started.
1 - Get the ship assignment info from either BMW customer relations (1-800 number in North America) or your sales/client advisor. Get the shipping company, VIN number of your car, and vessel name. They will also give you a projected ETA at your local port.
2 - If you're on a WW ship, I believe you can verify that your car is onboard by entering the VIN number as the cargo ID, on the WW website. NYKLine, to my knowledge, does not have this capability online. Note that it may take a day or two once the ship has set sail, for the system to actually show that your car is onboard. You don't need this step (you can trust BMW customer relations when they say your car is on this ship), but for extra peace of mind, this is good to do.
3 - Given the assignment info from BMW, get the ship's schedule (usually a PDF file) from the shipping company's website. This will tell you all the stops your ship will make, and a more accurate ETA at your local port. Note that if the ship gets ahead of schedule, this PDF can be updated over time. My ship is currently one day ahead of schedule. Check for updates.
4 - When the ship is close to land, you will be able to track it (presumably by radar ???) on http://ift.tt/rtbMN8. Go there and enter your ship's name to get tracking info.
5 - When your ship is away from land, satellite tracking is the only option. This requires that you either sign up for a free trial (or pay, which you won't do) of a satellite tracking account . I use and recommend the site http://ift.tt/1oU4ree. Note that there are many types of accounts on this site, so make sure it's the satellite tracking account. They provide detailed current and historical information. Note - the free trials last only a week, I think. Just create new accounts every week :D
6 - If your ship does a crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, e.g. for US West coast deliveries, it will go through the Panama canal. The Panama canal has live webcams available here: http://ift.tt/1vGmEvS, so you can see your ship up close. The ship will go through a series of "locks" (basically, some sort of raised platform, I think). The webcam that gives you the closest view of the ship is the one at the Miraflores locks. This is close to the Pacific end of the canal.
I have written a simple program to poll the webcam every 30 seconds (which is how often the image gets updated), so I can capture a poor man's video of my ship going through part of the canal. If you're interested in this, lemme know, and I can try to help you with this.
That's pretty much it. Feel free to ask me questions.
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