It can be used to mark a page as a set index article about ships. It is usually placed at the bottom of the page.

This template adds the page to Category:Set index articles on ships.

This template can be used without any parameters like this:

{{Ship index}}

Editors usually, however, want to control how the page is sorted in Category:Set index articles on ships. This is accomplished by using the "name=" parameter, like this:

{{Ship index|name=ship, prefix}}

• ship is the name of the ship index page without prefixes or preceding national identifiers
• prefix is the ship prefix or navy identifier

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines#Index pages for guidance on formatting ship index pages.

• {{Mountain index}} – For set index articles about mountain names.
• {{Set index article}} – The generic set index article message box.
• {{Disambiguation}} – The generic disambiguation message box.
• Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Set index articles – This section explains set index articles.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation