Every week, Bateaux.com offers you a question about the boat license. To validate your skills or even to discover unexplored areas. This week, we tackle the question of beacons.
A red - green - red cylindrical beacon
The red or green markers indicate a channel. When coming from the sea (entering a harbor or river), red buoys are on the port (left) side and green buoys on the starboard (right) side. This rule is valid in buoyage area A (most of the world except the Americas, Japan, Korea and the Philippines).
But sometimes the channel splits in two, to go around an island for example. In this case, a buoy marks this division. It will change color depending on which side the preferred channel passes. In our example, the preferred channel will be marked by "green" in the center of the colors. It is therefore necessary to take the right channel (Answer B), but the secondary channel (Answer A) is just as valid if you have a boat capable of using it (draft or even air draft).
If the preferred channel had been on the port side, the colors of the channel buoy would have been reversed (green-red-green) and the buoy would have had a conical shape.
Be careful, these answers are only valid in the zone of marker A. Indeed, in zone of marker B, the marks are reversed.
The buoyage is managed by the International Association of Maritime Signals (IALA). This one divided the world in 2 zones A and B. The A buoyage is used all over the world except on :
- the American continent
- the West Indies
- japan
- korea
- the Philippines
