ABSTRACT
Everybody, both onshore and at sea, has a responsibility for improving the safety of ships and for saving lives at sea. Aids to Navigation, also known as AtoN, are important tools that enhance ship safety. Unlike the roads and motorways that we drive on, the waterways do not have road signs that tell us our location or the distance to a destination, or of the hazards we may expect to encounter along the way. Instead, navigators are provided with aids to navigation. For hundreds of years, maritime authorities have marked safe and hazardous waters with buoys and beacons. In summary, aids to navigation help ship’s navigators to find and safely navigate within a narrow channel in a very wide expanse of water.
