To address the challenge of recognizing ship states accurately amidst the complexities of marine environments, this study proposes a novel ship state recognition approach leveraging a graph convolutional neural network (GCNN). Initially, the method extracts canonical and efficient ship motion trajectories from AIS data. Subsequently, a state recognition network tailored for ship motion trajectories is devised and implemented employing graph convolution. Notably, the accuracy of this model is enhanced through the introduction of novel weights and optimization of the Adj parameter. Experimental evaluations conducted on a ship state dataset demonstrate significant performance improvements. Specifically, the proposed recognition network achieves a recognition accuracy of 98.3% for regulated ship trajectories, marking an impressive 8.4% enhancement over traditional convolutional neural networks. This advancement holds promise for enhancing ship state recognition accuracy across diverse maritime applications including maritime supervision, navigation safety, and ship management.