IALA buoyage: read the marks
The IALA system is how the sea is signposted. Below are the six families of marks, laid out the way they work on the water. Click any mark to see it up close, with its light and a full description.
First: Region A or Region B?
The colours of lateral marks depend on where in the world you are. It is the only difference between the regions: the other five families are the same everywhere.
Region A
Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Gulf and most of Asia.
Red to port, green to starboard, entering from seaward.
Region B
The Americas, Japan, Korea, the Philippines.
The other way round: red to starboard, green to port. Hence „red right returning”.
They mark the sides of the channel. Entering from seaward, you leave the port-hand mark to port and the starboard-hand mark to starboard.
Where the channel divides
A modified lateral mark with one horizontal band in the other colour. It points to the preferred channel, and its Fl(2+1) light separates it from an ordinary lateral mark.
They say on which side the safe water lies: north, east, south or west of the mark. Laid out here like the compass.
The danger sits in the middle, and the cardinal marks around it tell you which side to pass. A north mark means safe water lies to its north, so you pass it on the north side. East on the east side, and the same for south and west.
The other marks
Common to both regions. Each has a look and a light you cannot confuse with anything else.
Facts (colours, shapes, topmarks, light rhythms) follow the IALA Maritime Buoyage System (MBS ed. 2.0). The drawings are our own vectors. The rhythm and colour in the drawings are illustrative: always check the real characteristics of a buoy on the chart and in the list of lights.