Left Bank - Right Bank
Left Bank - Right Bank
Tuesday, 15 November 2016
The actual terminology is not the important thing, and commercial boat people rarely use the terms left and right banks, but buoyage is defined in relation to the banks and it does then take on significance. In maritime IALA Buoyage for Europe red buoys will be kept to port and green ones to starboard as a vessel comes in toward a port or estuary. As you continue up the river and come onto a navigation subject to CEVNI rules you treat them in the same manner.
So rivers are straightforward. Canals can be lateral ones running beside a river, or junction ones that run from one valley to another, crossing higher ground between the two ends. The direction on lateral canals will be no different to the adjacent river, so that should be equally straightforward enough.
The other thing affected by “downhill” and “uphill” is which craft should give way to the other. It is therefore important to know which is which on a summit level, as there are generally no obvious clues other than the CEVNI recommendation. The photo at the head of the page of Viesville lock at the Charleroi end of the summit of the Bruxelles-Charleroi canal in Belgium with its initially intriguing signage is a rare exception. Each country does include such detail in its “special regulations” and these are supposed to be carried on board, either in paper or electronic form.
[1] One canal where left/right banks do follow kilometer markings rather than lock direction is the German Mittellandkanal which continues from the Dortmund-Emskanal towards the river Elbe near Magdeburg and ultimately into Poland. As you leave Dortmund travelling uphill the buoys are conventionally positioned red to port. At km 235 you reach the lock of Sülfeld which drops you down, but the buoys continue as if you were still travelling uphill. At km 325 you drop down again at Hohenwarte lock but again the buoys continue set as if travelling uphill, and continue until you reach Wüsterwitz where you enter the Plauesee and buoyage returns to normal.
link to Tam’s RYA Book of CEVNI Regulations and DVD Barge Handling in France
(All text and photographs copyright © Tam & Di Murrell unless otherwise credited)