Fuzhou Aids to Navigation Office Implements Multiple Measures to Safeguard Maritime Navigation Safety

Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day overlap, intensifying nearshore shipping and fishing activities in Fujian, thereby increasing maritime navigation risks. In northern Fujian's various territorial waters, navigation maintenance workers at Fuzhou Navigation Mark Service have entered "escort mode," employing land-sea coordination and technological empowerment to conduct navigation mark inspections, emergency repairs, and hazard investigations, ensuring safe routes for passing ships.

On the sea, navigation maintenance vessels seize favorable weather windows and engage in continuous operations. According to the original plan, the vessel "Hai Xun 1620" was scheduled to go to Luoyuan Bay on September 23 to carry out the annual hoisting and replacement of navigation marks. On the evening of September 22, the captain received an emergency repair order for navigation marks. After immediate analysis, the work plan was flexibly adjusted, swiftly handling light buoy malfunctions on-site amidst the completion of the scheduled hoisting and replacement tasks. The efficient actions seamlessly completed the emergency repairs and annual navigation mark replacements, maintaining the performance of navigation aids effectively.

On a remote island offshore, drones took to the sky and undertook the previously challenging task of lighthouse battery maintenance. On September 26, Fuzhou Navigation Mark Service utilized lifting drones to complete the replacement of the battery pack at Si Mu Yu Lighthouse. Staff set out at dawn, overcoming challenges such as difficult island access and changing sea conditions. Through shore-vessel transfers, drone lifting, and manual collaboration, they completed the battery replacement and recovery of old batteries after eight hours. Drone technology has broken geographical barriers, addressing difficult areas for navigation maintenance operations, and has become a powerful tool for modernizing navigation maintenance. Nowadays, drones are widely used in scenarios like navigation mark inspections, equipment lifting, and facility data collection, continuously enhancing technological navigation maintenance efficiency.

Multiple inspection teams simultaneously headed to territorial waters in their jurisdiction. The Mawei Navigation Mark Management Station joined forces with Machang Maritime Bureau to conduct pre-holiday joint patrols, carefully checking the status of navigation marks and discussing collision prevention measures for merchant and fishing vessels. The Fuqing Navigation Mark Management Station coordinated with departments like maritime, agriculture law enforcement, and coastal defense to conduct joint maritime patrols at Xinhuawan Jiangyin Port, inspecting navigation hazards and providing safety education for crew members and fishermen. Navigation mark maintenance technicians took advantage of early morning operation windows to conduct intensified inspections of 12 bridge navigation marks at the north-eastern entrance channel of the Pingtan Strait Railway and Highway Bridge. They meticulously checked mark appearance, lighting performance, and structural stability, addressing identified issues on-site in a closed-loop manner, striving to safeguard navigation safety in the bridge area.