Every week, Bateaux.com offers you a question about the boat license. To validate your skills or even to discover unexplored fields. This week, we tackle the question of maritime buoyage.
What is this red and white striped buoy?
A two-color buoy with vertical white and red stripes topped by a ball is a safe water mark. As the name implies, this buoy marks waters that are safe for navigation. But then, why do we tell our sailors this? Generally, these buoys are used to make a landing, installed in the center of a channel entrance. By guiding yourself to the buoy visually (during the day) or by radar or AIS (at night), you can be sure to enter the channel correctly.
For example, there are 2 of them marking the entrance to the Saint-Nazaire channel (entrance to the Loire River). The most westerly one emitting an AIS position in order to be visible by all ships.
