Marine Buoy Resources
BUOY TYPES
Sea Mark - aids pilots be marking a channel,hazard and administrative area allowing boats to navigate safely.
Lifebuoy - life saving device that can be thrown into the water to save a person. Provides buoyancy allowing the casualty to be pulled in and rescued.
Submarine - communication buoys. Released in case of emergency or to communicate with-out surfacing.
Communication - buoy / buoys for pressure sensors or tsunami detection. Usually on ocean floor.
Dan Buoy - maritime platform for light and radio beacons.
- lifebuoy with flags used on a boat or yacht.
- temporary marker used by the Danish. It marks the anchor position of a net.
- used by mine sweeping operations to indicate sweeps and boundaries of hazard areas.
- man overboard position mark.
Sonobuoy - ant-submarine warfare buoy. Aircraft deploy buoys to detect submarines using sonar.
Surface marker buoy - scuba divers mark their under-water position.
Decompression buoy - markers where divers are doing under water decompression. Required after a deep dive. Avoids the diver from getting the "bends".
Shot buoy - dive site and decompression markers for safety in poor visibility and strong tidal currents. Assists boats and divers.
Fairway buoy - navigational buoy marking the entrance to a channel or nearby landfall.
Mooring buoys - used for keeping a mooring line on the water surface.
that can have many different purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift. The word, of Old French or Middle Dutch origin, is now most commonly pronounced boi (identical with boy, also as in buoyancy) in UK English, although some orthopedists have traditionally prescribed the pronunciation bwoi. While chiefly American, more closely resembles the modern French "bouee".
Ships or boats can tie onto it.
Tripping buoy - keeps one end of a "tripping line" on the water surface. Allows a stuck anchor to be easily freed.
Weather buoys - equipped with assorted instruments for recording. Air temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction is recorded and can be sent via satellite to weather centers. Various models including tethered and drift. G.P.S. tracking of movement and position in the ocean.
Tsunami buoys - anchored buoys to detect changes in water pressure. Used in tsunami warnings. Pacific and Indian ocean deployment.
Spar buoy - tall, thin buoy floating upright in the water.
Profiling buoy - sinking buoy that can go down 2000 meters. Descending at a controlled rate, they record sea temperatures and salinity. Usually they resurface after 10 days and send data via satellite. After successful transmission, they descend and repeat the cycle.
Ice marking buoys - marks holes in the ice on rivers and lakes. Warms snowmobiles and pedestrian traffic of danger.
Marker buoys - naval warfare buoy. Used most specifically for anti-submarine warfare. Light or smoke emitting pyrotechnic device is attached to them. 3 inch (76mm) diameter and 20 inch (500mm) length is a common size. Contact with sea water sets off the signal. Floats on the surface and extinguishes after awhile. Some are made to sink on command.
Lobster / crab trap buoys - Colored buoys marking location of lobster and crab pots. Used by fishermen to identify their traps. Each boat will have its own registration numbers or colors. Law enforcement can identify if sets are legal or not by colors and boat registration.
Lobster and Crab quotas and allowed species are regulated. Bright colors aid in finding them in poor visibility like rain, fog, smoke and rough weather.
Wave-rider buoy - measures the movement of the water as a wave train. Analysed for wave height,direction and period statistics.
Target buoy - used in live fire exercises. Naval and coastal forces target them with weapons such as anti-tank rockets, 20-60 caliber guns, small cannons and assorted other weapons.
Wreck buoy - marking a sunken vessel hazard.
Self-locating Datum marker buoy - (SLDMB) 70% scale Coastal Ocean Dynamics Experiment oceanographic surface drifter with drogue vanes between 30 - 100 cm deep.Specifically designed for deployment from a US Coast Guard vessel or air-frame. Used for search end rescues missions. The SLDMB has a small surface area on the ocean surface and a large under water area. The design makes little leeway in forcing tides and waves.
Space buoy - common element in science fiction. Refers to stationary object in outer space displaying data or warnings about that particular area.
Buoy racing is the most prevalent form of yacht racing.
