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waters. But the data is all too often haphazardly collected, if at all; 
as often as not it is disbursed among a motley variety of bureaucratic 
organs, in accordance with differing subjective perceptions of func- 
tional interests. The efficient collating of these sources lies beyond 
the scope of this analysis. (It would demand the resources of govern- 
ment.) Tentative efforts have been undertaken. The FAO is presently 
preparing a comprehensive world list of fishing vessels.* This, and 
analogous efforts by shipping agencies,t as regards merchant ships, 
and establishments such as ‘‘Jane’s,’’ the World Data Centers and 
the U.S. NODC,> as regards at least some types of research vessels, 
point the way. 
There furthermore remain also a number of as yet untapped and 
unclassified Soviet sources of note. One thinks especially of the publi- 
cations and libraries of the specialized marine, fishing and research 
institutes in Leningrad. Only fragments of these are easily available 
in the West.® They obviously ought to be tapped more fully. Unfortu- 
nately, the restricted scope of this analysis precludes the exercise. 
Now, with these caveats in mind—the “answers” as they emerge 
from our study may be delineated as follows: 
3Information provided by Dr. Beckett of the (Canadian) Department of the Environment’s Interna- 
tional Fisheries Office, Ottawa, April 1975. There are also a number of regional compilations, some 
of the most thorough come from The International Commission for the North West Atlantic Fishe- 
ries, headquartered in Dartmouth, N.S., Canada. This issues tri-annual Lists of Fishing Vessels, with 
summaries of the fishing effort of the intervening years. The latest available list was for 1971, 
published in October 1972; a 1974 list was scheduled for 1975 publication but was still unavailable at 
the time of writing. They summarize the number, size and type of ships of nations fishing in the area. 
Even this source is woefully inadequate for all but the most basic of data. But it does document the 
growth of Soviet involvement (from 111 vessels totalling 126,596 tons in 1959 to 502 vessels 
totalling 782,223 tons in 1971), the extraordinary size of the Sovict vessels (see above; none under 
150 tons), and the Soviet deployment of experimental ships (4 in 1971; none are noted under other 
flags).—The same agency also issues annual Statistical Bulletins (as with the above, the compilations 
are gross in character), the latest available edition of which, for 1972, was published in 1974; and an- 
nual Redbooks with conference proceedings and reports. 
4By national shipping federations (the annual Norwegian publications are among the more com- 
prehensive) and by the various shipping consortiums. It should be noted however that these remain 
somewhat parochial in focus. 
5 Jane's Fighting Ships. Edited by Captain John E. Moore, London, England. Jane’s, the famed 
quasi-independent British collator of available world armaments (and related) data, provides perhaps 
the most useful source of information pertinent to a study such as this—even if it may be rather too 
discriminating at times. 
For fuller compilations of Soviet vessels one must turn i.e., to the ICSU’s World Data Center 
System, which for our purposes means World Data Center A in Washington (B is in Moscow), and 
the U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center. The former publishes Catalogues of Data received 
from affiliated organs, on fixed station and vessel cruise programs, and arranged according to spon- 
soring institutions. Again, the data is useful for overviews, but sparse on detail. Continuous up-dates 
are published. They also published a volume on Oceanographic Vessels of the World in 1963, and 
while there is no single more up-to-date edition, the NODC does periodically issue Up Date Sheets of 
this work (Chart III B is taken from the latest such sheet, dated December 1974; it might be interest- 
ing to note that of the 150 Soviet ships here enumerated, only 16 are of such vintage as to have ap- 
peared also in the 1963 collection). Although the NODC relies mostly on data provided through 
World Data Center A, they do also incorporate data received from other sources, including the 
C.I.A. Nevertheless, the dearth of detail information remains glaring. Furthermore: information on 
complementary Soviet Naval research vessels is not included at all in these sources. 
Finally, some other sources of related data deserve mentioning. One might mention UNESCO's in- 
tergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Technical Series and International Marine Sciences 
Newsletter; the more narrowly regionally focused data issued by The International Council for the 
Exploration of the Sea, headquartered in Charlottenlund, Denmark, and by such institutions as The 
Arctic Institute of North America; one-shot efforts such as the U.S. Naval Hydrographic Office’s 
1958 Oceanographic Atlas of Polar Seas, which lists Arctic and Antarctic research investigations 
(including those of the U.S.S.R.); and more peculiar efforts, such as the Canadian Department of the 
Environment's forthcoming Bibliography on Northern Sea Ice and Related Subjects (a useful guide to 
source material on i.e., oceanography, meteorology and effects on navigation). 
®Most of the books published can be obtained (the most important publisher for our purposes, 
aside from Nauka of Moscow, is The Hydrometeorological Service’s Gidrometeoizdat in Leningrad), 
the journals and monographs are much more rare. 
