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Aids to Navigation General

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AuxNav Aids to Navigation Training Aid

Aids to Navigation - also known as ATONs - are man made objects created to help mariners determine their position and safest course. These can be in the form of buoys, lights, ranges, daybeacons. The United States Coast Guard maintains ATONs on the US waters and those that serve the needs of United States armed forced. Aids to navigation are shown on charts.

States maintain those aids to navigation on bodies of water that lie entirely within the state and are not navigable to the oceans. The states have agreed on a uniform system of ATONs and regulatory markers.

Private aids to navigation may be placed in federal waters by individuals and agencies such as schools, research facilities or sporting interests. These must be patterned after federal ATONs and fixed structures require a permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers.

• Shapes and Colors of Buoys
• Sound Buoys
• Light Colors
• Light Rhythms
• Yellow Markings
• Daymarks
• Regulatory and Informational Markers
• Definitions

Shapes and Colors of Buoys

Most buoys are either cans (cylinders) or nuns (cones).

• Green - The cans are green, and they have odd numbers. The first buoy (farthest out) as you enter the channel will have the lowest number with numbers increasing as you travel in.
• Red - The nuns are red and have even numbers.
• Red and Green - Buoys can be red and green striped for a center channel marker and the top color tells you the preferred channel. If you are passing a buoy with a red stripe on top, coming from the sea, leave it on your starboard side.
• Yellow - Yellow buoys have to do with the Intracoastal Waterway in the United States.
• Orange and white - buoys can be round or cylindrical and are regulatory or informational.
• Black - Black markers are state or private aids and are cylindrical. They have odd numbers.
• Blue and White - Blue and white buoys are mooring buoys.

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Sound Buoys

Sound buoys come with a variety of sounds to be heard in the fog. Adjacent buoys can have different sounds so you can identify them in the fog.

• Bell Buoys - These can be steel floats with a skeleton tower which holds a bell. These buoys require sea movement to be activated, so they are not usually in sheltered waters.
• Gong Buoys - These are similar to bell buoys, but have 4 gongs, each with a different pitch. Each gong has a different clapper
• Whistle Buoys - The whistle is sounded by compressed air which is produced by the motion of the sea.
• Horn Buoys - The horn is electrically powered and are used when a sound is needed and sea motion prohibits depending on one of the other 3 buoys.

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Lighted Buoys

Lighted buoys may have lights of different colors, intensities and flashing characteristics. A lighted buoy is posered by batteries that are charged by solar cells. The lights on buoys may be green, white, yellow, or red, depending on the function of the buoys. If a buoy has both a sound signal and a light, it is called a "combination buoy"

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Light Colors

• Red Lights - The red lighted buoy is on the right as you return from the sea.
• Green Lights - Green lighted buoys are on the left returning from sea.
• White Lights - Mark safe water.

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Light Rhythms

Buoys that are near each other have different light rhythms so you can tell which buoy you are looking at in the dark.

• Fixed - This light is on all of the time
• Flashing - A flashing light is off and flashes on at equal intervals. The chart will note the "period" for flashing. If the chart says "3 sec.", the flashes every 3 seconds.
• Isophase - An Isophase light is on and off equally. It can be on 2 seconds and off 2 seconds, etc.
• Occulting - An occulting light can blink in groups using the "off" periods to count. The light may be on 6 seconds then off for 2 seconds.

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Yellow Markings

Note: The term "from seaward" on the Intracoastal Waterway means clockwise around the United States. (South on the East Coast, etc.)

• Yellow Triangle - A yellow triangle is kept on the right when traveling from seaward on the ICW.
• Yellow Square - A yellow square is kept on the left when traveling from seaward on the ICS
• Yellow Band - A yellow band doesn't give lateral informtion, but identifies the ATON as a marker on the ICW.

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Daymarks

Daybeacons or daymarks are fixed aids to navigation. A daybeacon can be either on shore or in the water. It is a lateral aid or a cardinal aid.

• Square dayboards are green and numbered with odd numbers.
• Triangular ones are red and numbered in sequence with the buoyage system with even numbers.
• Octagonal dayboard is red and white and is a midchannel marker.
• Diamond shaped daymark is orange and white and can mark shoals, rocks, or other dangers.
• Horizontal Red and Green Stripes mark a junction with the preferred color at the top of the marker. If the preferred channel is to keep the marker on your right coming from sea, the shape will be triangular and the red stripe will appear at the top.

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Regulatory and Informational Markers

These markers can be either square, diamond-shaped or circular.

• Diamond - means danger and words may appear explaining the danger.
• Circle - means restricted operations.
• Diamond with a cross - tells you that vessels are not allowed in the area
• Square - contains directions to the boater

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Definitions

Buoy - Buoys are floating markers anchored to the bottom

Cardinal System - Markers set at the cardinal points around a dangerous area.

Lateral System - The marks in the lateral system indicate points along the area of safe water. An example of the lateral buoyage system is channel markers.

Solutions are dependent upon facts & circumstances, law and the objectives.  These elements vary from one time to another, from one circumstance to another and from from person or entity to another

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