The State : Navy Studies Buoy Safety

The Navy has quietly launched a safety review of all of its mooring buoys in the United States in the wake of a court ruling on a fatal boating accident involving an unlit buoy in Anaheim Bay. In addition to reviewing the marking, lighting and placement of all such buoys, the Navy is studying what one official described as “new technologies” that might permit the use of lighter construction materials in the buoys, commonly heavy metal cans. The Navy’s failure to light an Anaheim Bay buoy was cited by a federal judge who earlier this year found the Navy partially liable in a 1984 speed boat crash that left five dead. The boat’s driver, who was convicted of manslaughter, plowed head on into the metal mooring buoy in the dark.