IN TALKING WITH BOATERS, BE THEY READERS, MARINA MATES or folks I meet on the water, it’s become apparent that some are baffled by buoys. The crux of the problem, as I’ve discerned it, is the supposition that navaids tell loads of detailed information — that they are supposed to be interpreted, only after long experience, like hoodoo chicken bones, a racing form or a conversation with a woman in latestage pregnancy.
In fact, navaids give very simple information. The first buoys in the United States were casks, placed in the Delaware River in 1767 to mark shoals. They weren’t color-coded, lit or equipped with sound signals. In fact, casks and spars were used until the 1860s, when standardized sizes and colors and, subsequently, our present-day lateral system were emplaced.…
