Buoy (shipping)
A buoy is a spherical, conical, or barrel-shaped floating body that is generally anchored. Depending on the size and use, buoys are made as hollow bodies made of metal, plastic or solid cork. Buoys are used to moor watercraft , as a marker for the position of anchors ( Döpper as anchor buoys ), as signal buoys for divers (often made of fillable bubbles made of foil or textile) etc. Buoy chains also serve as boundary markers, especially as marking the boundaries of nature reserves that are not allowed to be crossed by watercraft.
Floating sea marks are buoys or lightships ; the term buoy is unusual for sea marks.
For anchoring the buoys / buoys on the ground mostly / often heavy weights made of stone or concrete are used. If a buoy is not anchored, it is called a drift buoy . Floating buoys are used in shipping, for example, as carriers of distress signal transmitters ( emergency beacon ). As was common in the past, an appropriately large block of natural stone can be used for anchoring, in which a hole is chiseled, for example to cast a ring anchor with lead or to screw on a stiff sheet metal eyelet that must remain rotatable.
Measuring station
In marine research, buoys serve as floating instrumentation for the collection of oceanic and atmospheric data, as well as for some other research purposes. In the Argo project alone , several thousand robot-assisted buoys are working on the oceans, which can sink to a depth of 2000 meters and, after surfacing, transmit their measurements (water temperature, salinity) to satellites a few days later.
Mooring buoy and mooring buoy
The advantages of mooring watercraft ( e.g. yachts ) to buoys over anchoring are:
- Less effort
- Independence from anchorage ground and water depth
- High level of security (with adequate dimensioning and maintenance of the anchorage)
- Lying without a long anchor line or chain and thus better use of space (little swaying )
- Protection of the ground, as there is no need to retract or break the anchor.
There is usually a fee to be paid for using such buoys.
The world's largest system of mooring buoys was built with over 1200 buoys by the Egyptian environmental protection organization HEPCA in the Red Sea .
Buoy chains
Buoy chain systems, such as the Albano system for boat routes, usually mark several parallel lanes on bodies of water in order to carry out synchronous sporting competitions. They swim on the surface of swimming pools, bodies of water or waterways and are used for swimming, rowing and paddling.
In the swimming pool the buoys are only about 6 cm in diameter very close to each other, are strung like pearls on a rope and fixed to prevent slipping, dampen short waves a little and a swimmer can easily dive under them. Each rope is attached to the beginning and end of the pool and can be easily retrieved by winding it onto a reel.
For boats, the buoys in a chain are typically 10 meters apart. So that boats can also move out to the side, for example when a team gives up, the anchoring of each individual buoy must be at least as far as the maximum depth that can be expected from a row or paddle stroke before a rope that is continuously stretched under water ensures the straightness of the chain.
Buoy chains that delimit the exit zones of boat harbors or moorings or entry corridors for water sports enthusiasts ( kite surfers , water skiers , ...) in lakes from areas with bathing facilities for swimmers are usually anchored to the bottom with stones and can therefore also form curved borders and are located there often more than 10 meters apart.
