Under the motto "Marine Aids to Navigation: Successful Voyages, Sustainable Planet"
Spain will host the first edition of "World Marine Aids to Navigation Day"
- Around 1 July there will be activities including exhibitions, an open doors day, conferences, etc.
28-02-2019 (Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport). Puertos del Estado, which chaired the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) until May 2018, offered to stage the main event internationally for the first edition of the World Marine Aids to Navigation Day (WAtoN-Day). The IALA Council, in a meeting held last December, accepted this proposal and established the following motto for the event: "Marine Aids to Navigation: Successful Voyages, Sustainable Planet"
Puertos del Estado, as the Member for Spain, will coordinate the different initiatives to be undertaken in Spain to celebrate this first edition of World Marine Aids to Navigation Day which will consist of a number of activities such as exhibitions, an open doors day, conferences, etc. to be held around 1 July in different parts of Spain and details of which will be published at a later date in the media, including on the Websites for Puertos del Estado (www.puertos.es) and for the "Lighthouses of Spain" project (www.lighthousesofspain.es).
One of the objectives of this World Marine Aids to Navigation Day is to raise awareness of this technical sphere relating to navigational safety and the preservation of the marine environment, enabling safe traffic for all types of vessels through the use of marine navigation aids, the latter referring to any device, system or service which is external to the vessel and designed and operated for the purpose of improving navigational safety and efficiency for individual ships and vessels and/or marine traffic in general, with special emphasis on its present and future status,
including VTS, not forgetting the past but highlighting the fact that marine navigation aids involve much more than classical lighthouses and luminous signals, the importance of which is not doubted for one moment.
Apart from raising awareness as indicated above, the objectives of this WAtoN-Day include: reasserting its commitment for the benefit of society in general; highlighting the milestones reached and promoting new actions; providing information on technological innovation in this field and the contribution made by this innovation to standardizing marine aids to navigation around the world.
The celebration of World Marine Aids to Navigation Day on 1 July, the date on which IALA was founded in 1957, came as a result of a proposal by Puertos del Estado to the IALA Council, who forwarded this to the IALA General Assembly. Spain's proposal was unanimously approved at the 13th IALA General Assembly, held in Incheon (Republic of Korea) on 29 May 2018, and invited members of the Association to hold its events around this date.
Other world and international days relating to this field include World Meteorological Day (23 March), World Hydrography Day (21 June), World Telecommunications Day (17 May) and World Maritime Day (fourth Thursday in September, 26 Sept. 2019).
Further information on: https://www.iala-aism.org/news-events/world-marine-aids-to-navigation-day/