What You Need To Know About Navigation Aids While Boating

Whether you're a new boat owner or a waterway veteran, boating safety is essential to enjoying your time on the lake, river or bay. One important part of staying safe in the water is knowing what the different aids to navigation are trying to tell you. Like street signs for a car, ignoring these aids could put you and your passengers in danger.

What Are Aids to Navigation

Part of enjoying the boating lifestyle is understanding what the water navigation markers mean. Navigation aids are like street signs for the road. They help to control water traffic and maintain clear channels of navigation. Without such aids, a busy waterway could quickly become a free-for-all.

Types of Aids to Navigation You Need to Know

Below are some of the most common boating aids to navigation:

1. Green Buoys or Markers. Green buoys and markers the left (port) side of the channel when leaving a harbor. These can be many shapes, such as can buoys, lighted buoys or day markers, but they will always be green or have a green light atop them. Such markers always have odd numbers on them.
2. Red Buoys or Markers. Conversely, red buoys and markers indicate the right (starboard) side of the channel when leaving a harbor. Like the port markers, these can be many shapes and sizes, but they are always red and they always have even numbers on them.
3. Safe Water Markers. Safe water buoys or markers, also called fairway buoys or mid-channel buoys, are painted with alternating red and white vertical stripes. Boats may pass on either side of these markers.

Just as you wouldn't travel the wrong way in your car on a one-way street, knowing what boating aids to navigation mean and following them insures that everyone stays safe on the water this season.