Published June 29, 2021
A waterway channel buoy in Quang Ninh, whose chain was broken by a storm, drifted into Chinese waters and was recovered almost a month later.
The GPS unit on the buoy and the remote monitoring system showed the buoy's route.
The Vietnam Inland Waterways Administration said that on the afternoon of 31 July, the Vietnamese authorities in Mong Cai, Quang Ninh, took back a national waterway channel buoy from the Van Tam – Bac Luan route (Quang Ninh), handed over by the authorities of Dongxing, Guangxi, China.
The buoy, numbered QGV VT-BL-P19, is a 1.4 m PE plastic buoy. It went missing in early July 2019, and the waterway authority determined that it had drifted into the territory of Dongxing, Guangxi, China.
Mr Nguyen Hai Anh, Deputy Director of River Management Joint Stock Company No. 3 (which maintains the Van Tam – Bac Luan channel), said that under the influence of storm no. 2 (Typhoon Mun) the buoy's chain and anchor broke on 7 July and it drifted away. The buoy carried a solar lantern with a GPS unit for online monitoring over the internet, so the company could track the buoy's route to its last position in Chinese waters, north of the free navigation area at the mouth of the Bac Luan river (near border marker 1378).
"Channel buoys are waterway infrastructure assets, so once we found the buoy in Chinese territory the company reported to the Vietnam Inland Waterways Administration and the Northern Inland Waterways Sub-department, and asked the Quang Ninh and Mong Cai Border Guard Commands to help recover the buoy from the Chinese authorities.
At 3 pm on 31 July, near border marker 1376 at sea, the authorities of Dongxing (China), Mong Cai (Quang Ninh) and the Vietnam Inland Waterways Administration handed over and took back the buoy," Mr Hai Anh said. When it was handed over, the buoy hull and lantern were intact; only the chain and sinker were missing. The same day, the buoy was put back in its original position on the Van Tam – Bac Luan national waterway.
The GPS unit on the buoy and the remote monitoring system showed the buoy's route.
According to the Vietnam Inland Waterways Administration, in 2016 it began piloting the management of waterway buoys and lanterns on several national routes using GPS units fitted to the lanterns on the buoys. It also piloted plastic buoys to replace traditional steel ones, to cut maintenance costs and extend buoy life.
The Administration added that the lanterns and GPS units on the buoys are made in Vietnam and cost about half as much as imports. The national waterway network now has more than 6,000 lanterns with operating-status monitoring, more than 2,000 of them on buoys with GPS positioning as well.
Thanks to GPS, nearly a hundred channel buoys that drifted in natural disasters, were struck by vessels or were stolen have been recovered since 2016. This was, however, the first buoy to drift into another country and be recovered.
H. Loc