Romania’s Maritime Hydrographic Directorate published a new radio navigational warning on Thursday that is still the working two-nautical-mile keep-clear on a dangerous drifting object east of the Romanian coast. The official English text, printed on the Directorate’s avize-radio page as ARN 162/2026, states: BLACK SEA. ROMANIA. DRIFTING OBJECT. A dangerous drifting object was observed on 300931 UTC October 2026 in position 44-30,94 N 029-33,70 E. Due to currents and wind, the general drift is to the south. Navigate with caution and keep a berth of 2 NM away from the object. Cancel this message on 021000 UTC November 2026. The notice is published 30 October 2026. The Romanian page, ARN 162/2026, prints the same geometry, the same two-nautical-mile berth and the same cancel clock as 12:00 local on 2 November, after a 11:31 local sighting on 30 October. Industry coastal reprints carry the notice as 162/26, active until 021000 UTC on 2 November.
That is the working primary. Sunday morning’s product is a drifting-object keep-clear, not a wreck rewrite and not a second Khoryv attack. It does not name a hull. It does not name an IMO number. It does not name a cargo, a bunker figure, a wreck buoy, a light, or an attacker. It does not convert the object into a mine, a container, or a partially sunken ship. Saturday night’s dedicated NAVWARN 777/26 piece on this desk, published about 23:34 UTC, still told operators that Bulgaria’s in-force board ended at cutter 331 in Burgas Bay and that 766/26 remained the five-cable Khoryv keep-clear east of Shabla. ARN 162/2026 was not on that board when that note was written. Masters who brief Sunday as a Khoryv move, as a Contship Jet container rewrite, as Wine Trader on fire again, or as a closed mine-clearance will have merged a two-nautical-mile drifting-object watch into four other series.
What the warning actually printed
The hydrographic text is short and is the working primary. BLACK SEA. ROMANIA. DRIFTING OBJECT. Published 30 October 2026. Sighting clock 300931 UTC October 2026. Position 44-30,94 N 029-33,70 E. Dangerous drifting object. General drift to the south because of currents and wind. Navigate with caution. Keep a berth of 2 NM away from the object. Cancel this message on 021000 UTC November 2026. That is the product. Stay with that wording. The Directorate did not print a hull name. It did not print an IMO number. It did not print a wreck buoy, a light, a least depth, a pollution line, a cargo, a bunker figure, or an attacker. It did not print a mine, a container, a net, or a part of military equipment on this numbered notice. It did not print a VHF working channel on the English body. It did not close Constanta, Midia, Mangalia or the Sulina Canal.
The geometry is the first briefing fact. 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E sits well east of the Constanta traffic-separation scheme and well east of Thursday’s dedicated Khoryv landfall offset. It is not 43-49.50 N, 028-53.37 E. It is not 43-30.60 N, 028-43.69 E. It is not 43-07.80 N, 028-45.36 E. A two-nautical-mile berth around the new position is a new plotted circle. Sunday’s dedicated Khoryv files do not move because this circle exists. Constanta, Midia and Mangalia are not closed by this notice. The Sulina approaches are not closed by this notice. Do not brief a Romanian port shutdown from an unnamed drifting object with a Sunday-to-Monday cancel clock.
The cancel clock is the second briefing fact. ARN 162/2026 kills itself at 021000 UTC on 2 November unless a later numbered notice replaces it. That is Monday morning, not a standing wreck symbol. A passage plan that treats 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E as a charted obstruction after 021000 UTC without a replacement ARN has over-read a self-cancelling drifting-object watch. A passage plan that drops the two-nautical-mile berth on Sunday afternoon because the object “must have gone south” has under-read a notice that still holds until Monday 1000 UTC. The south-drift sentence is a general direction, not a later fix. The Directorate has not printed a Sunday position. Plot the Thursday 0931 UTC fix, keep the two-nautical-mile berth, and keep a lookout up-drift and down-drift until 021000 UTC or until a later ARN moves the plot.
The missing object-type line is an omission, not a completed identification. Romania’s standing drifting-objects recommendation, still on the same avize-radio page, tells ships that an increasing number of floating objects and parts of military equipment are being encountered along the coastline, to exercise increased caution, to inform the authorities on 112, to keep a safe distance, and to avoid hitting or handling them. That standing line is wrap, not a 162/2026 finding that Thursday’s object is a mine or a piece of military equipment. Do not invent a mine from a dangerous-drifting-object sentence. Do not invent a Contship container from a two-nautical-mile berth. Do not invent a Khoryv sliver of hull from a notice that names neither hull nor wreck.
What this is not, and the same-week hydrographic colour
This is not a rewrite of ARN 158/2026, and it is not a Khoryv move. Tuesday’s dedicated Directorate piece remains the last Romanian wreck-move on M/V Khoryv: ARN 158/2026, published 27 October, cancels 156/2026, report clock 10:00 UTC / 12:00 local 27 October, position 43-49.50 N, 028-53.37 E, remains afloat, capsized, three missing, one-nautical-mile keep-clear, report MRCC Constanta VHF 16 / [email protected]. Thursday’s dedicated Bulgarian NAVWARN 766/26 remains the working five-cable keep-clear east of Shabla at 43-30.60 N, 028-43.69 E, hull named, IMO 8138712, capsized, semi-submerged, drifting, without crew and lights. 162/2026 prints neither Khoryv nor 43-49.50 N nor 43-30.60 N. A one-nautical-mile wreck circle and a two-nautical-mile unnamed-object circle are two instruments. Do not brief Sunday as “Khoryv moved east to 44-30 N.” Do not replace 766/26’s five cables with 162/2026’s two nautical miles.
This is not a rewrite of NAVWARN 768/26, and it is not a Contship Jet container rewrite. Thursday’s dedicated Bulgarian notice remains: M/V Contship Jet, IMO 9348625, sunk at 282030 UTC October 2026 in 43-07.80 N 028-45.36 E, over 20 containers adrift, lost cargo includes flammable gases, non-flammable non-toxic gases, flammable liquids and other dangerous goods, wreck and drifting containers pose immediate navigational danger, extreme caution. 162/2026 does not name Contship Jet, does not print 43-07.80 N 028-45.36 E, and does not print a container count. Kaliakra and the Romanian 44-30 N offset are not the same plot. Do not convert Thursday’s unnamed object into Saturday’s dedicated container watch because both print drift.
This is not ARN 161/2026, and it is not cancelled ARN 151/2026. Official ARN 161/2026, also still on the Directorate English page this morning, is a separate dangerous drifting object observed at 291000 UTC October 2026 in 45-05,97 N 029-47,93 E, general drift south, two-nautical-mile berth, cancel 011100 UTC November 2026. That cancel clock is 11:00 UTC today. It is a different object, farther north, with an earlier sighting and an earlier kill time. Do not merge Thursday’s 44-30.94 N plot onto Wednesday’s 45-05.97 N plot because both print a two-nautical-mile berth and a south drift. ARN 151/2026, already wrapped on the Khoryv files, reported a dangerous floating object at 43-53.20 N, 030-43.20 E and self-cancelled at 261100 UTC on 26 October. That cancel clock has already passed. It is not this object.
This is not Wine Trader, not Royad Mammadov, and not Progress IV. ARN 145/2026 remains the 15 October fire-and-unmanned notice on M/V Wine Trader at 45-00.40 N 029-59.92 E, one-nautical-mile berth, report MRCC Constanta. ARN 141/2026 remains M/V Royad Mammadov in danger of sinking at 44-27.64 N 029-46.90 E. ARN 118/2026 remains M/V Progress IV sunk at 44-37.64 N 029-48.14 E, mooring lines in the water column, hydrocarbons on the surface, temporary two-nautical-mile safety zone. 162/2026 names none of those hulls. A DPA who briefs Sunday as “Wine Trader drifted south” has borrowed a 15 October fire position and has dropped the unnamed object that is the whole of this notice.
This is not Saturday’s dedicated Bulgarian territorial-sea e-mail, not the Galata diving box, and not cutter 331. NAVWARN 775/26 remains Saturday morning’s two-hour [email protected] pre-entry report. NAVWARN 776/26 remains Saturday afternoon’s four-corner prohibition south of Cape Galata from 030600 UTC to 051430 UTC 3–5 November. NAVWARN 777/26 remains Saturday night’s Burgas Bay hydrographic cutter 331 from 030615 UTC to 061600 UTC 3–6 November, three-cable berth. 757/26 remains the Varna Lake BRIZ-ESEN wrap, including today’s 010800–011600 UTC window. Those are Varna and Burgas products. They do not belong on a Romanian 44-30 N drifting-object watch.
Same-week Directorate colour, for the bridge folder, not as a second dedicated casualty. ARN 157/2026, published 27 October and still in force, warns of a maritime exercise from 28 October to 3 November inside a circular area of 20 nautical miles radius centred on 44-02.79 N, 030-35.25 E, mariners to avoid entering, cancel 032130 UTC on 3 November. That box sits around the Neptun Alpha production-platform offset, well southeast of Thursday’s drifting-object plot. It is not 162/2026 and it is not a wreck buoy. The standing Neptun Alpha notice still asks for 500 metres at 44-02.85 N 030-35.25 E. Coastal-protection works still sit inshore near 43-56 N, 028-39 E until 31 January 2027. A missing port-hand light buoy remains at 43-48.17 N, 028-33.72 E on ARN 146/2026. Those are harbour-approach and platform colour. They are not this object. ARN 144/2026, the 14 October man-overboard from Platforma Centrala at 44-31.35 N 029-33.88 E, sits almost on Thursday’s plot. That is a two-week-old MOB lookout, not a 162/2026 identification. Do not brief the drifting object as a person in the water from a 14 October notice.
Operational implications
For a master inbound to Constanta, Midia, Mangalia or Sulina, or running recommended track 4 across the Romanian area of responsibility, Sunday morning is a lookout and CPA problem before it is a war-risk rewrite. The Directorate printed an unnamed dangerous drifting object at 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E on a Thursday 0931 UTC clock, printed a general south drift, and printed a two-nautical-mile berth that lives until 021000 UTC Monday. A two-nautical-mile circle around a drifting object is larger than Khoryv’s one-nautical-mile Romanian circle and larger than Khoryv’s five-cable Bulgarian circle. It is not a port closure. The standing recommended-routes notice still tells ships approaching and leaving Romanian harbours to use 43-47.59 N, 028-50.86 E and, as the case may be, recommended tracks 1, 2 and 4. Thursday’s plot sits on the eastern offshore geometry that recommended track 4 uses on the run toward 44-26.93 N, 029-43.20 E and 44-36.49 N, 029-52.56 E, not on the Constanta landfall waypoint. A passage plan that only carried Tuesday’s Khoryv landfall offset, or that treated the eastern recommended track as clean because 151/2026 already cancelled, has not budgeted a Thursday 0931 UTC object with a Monday morning cancel.
The south-drift sentence is the routing change the first paragraph could not yet give. The object was observed at 44-30.94 N. The notice says the general drift is to the south. It does not print a Sunday fix. A hull or object that has already had more than two days to make southing from a Thursday morning sighting can sit south of 44-30 N by a Sunday morning passage and can sit farther south again before Monday 1000 UTC. Plot the printed position. Keep the two-nautical-mile berth. Keep a lookout up-drift and down-drift, not only at the Thursday coordinate. Do not leave 44-30.94 N as a pinned wreck symbol. Do not assume the object is lit, AIS-visible, or on the surface in the same aspect as Thursday. Do not assume it has gone ashore because the standing coastline recommendation mentions objects along the litoral. This notice is an offshore plot at 029-33.70 E.
For a DPA and an operator with ships on the Constanta, Midia, Mangalia or Sulina run this week, the reporting split is the operational content. Sightings of an unnamed floating object near 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E, or south of that plot, go to MRCC Constanta on VHF 16 or [email protected] on the standing Directorate pattern, and to the company security officer. The English body of 162/2026 does not reprint that mailbox; Tuesday’s dedicated 158/2026 still does. The standing mine-and-drifting-object recommendation still asks ships to report mine-like objects on VHF 16 to [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]. 162/2026 does not convert Thursday’s object into a confirmed mine. It also does not authorise a master to treat every floating object on the Romanian coast as this numbered watch after 021000 UTC Monday. Log the ARN number, the 30 October publication, the 300931 UTC sighting, the 44-30.94 N 029-33.70 E position, the south-drift sentence, the two-nautical-mile berth, and the 021000 UTC 2 November cancel. Do not log Khoryv, Contship Jet, Wine Trader, a mine-clearance, a container count, or a 43-49.50 N landfall move that the notice does not print.
Charterers who still treat the Romanian coast as a quiet alternative to Ukrainian ports now have a two-nautical-mile unnamed-object watch east of the coast through Monday morning, a still-open Khoryv file on a different plot, and a still-open Contship Jet container watch farther south on the Bulgarian board. Carnival-style deviation language that treats 162/2026 as a Constanta shutdown has misread a self-cancelling berth. War-risk underwriters will ask for the 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E position, the two-nautical-mile line, the Monday cancel, and a written statement that this notice is not Khoryv and not Contship Jet. They will not be answered by Tuesday’s 158/2026 wreck-move alone, and they will not be answered by Saturday night’s Burgas cutter.
A pollution watch remains open because the notice is silent. Tuesday’s dedicated Khoryv file already told operators not to invent a slick from a wreck-move. Thursday’s 162/2026 still prints no hydrocarbon line, no boom, and no closed beach. That is not a clean bill, and it is not a spill. The notice does not name a tank, a container or a bunker. Masters inbound to Constanta, Midia, Mangalia or Sulina should expect a two-nautical-mile berth around a Thursday fix with a south-drift warning, a lookout for other floating objects, and the standing 112 / VHF 16 report if the object looks mine-like, not a completed wreck-removal order. Do not treat the canal, the roadstead or the port as closed unless the Authority or the harbour master says so.
Keep the dedicated files on their own lines. ARN 158/2026 remains Tuesday’s dedicated Khoryv wreck-move at 43-49.50 N, 028-53.37 E. NAVWARN 766/26 remains Thursday’s dedicated five-cable Khoryv keep-clear east of Shabla. NAVWARN 768/26 remains Thursday’s dedicated Contship Jet wreck and drifting containers southeast of Kaliakra. ARN 161/2026 remains the separate 45-05.97 N object with an 011100 UTC cancel today. ARN 157/2026 remains the 20-nautical-mile Neptun Alpha exercise circle through 032130 UTC 3 November. ARN 145/2026 remains Wine Trader. 775/26 remains the two-hour Bulgarian territorial-sea e-mail. 776/26 remains the Galata diving box. 777/26 remains cutter 331 in Burgas Bay. 757/26 remains the Varna Lake regatta wrap, including today’s window. Do not recast 1 November morning as a Khoryv eastward jump, as a Contship rewrite, as a mine-clearance, or as a Romanian port closure.
What Operators Should Note
- Log 162/2026 as an unnamed two-nautical-mile drifting-object watch, not as a Khoryv move and not as a Contship rewrite. Directorate ARN 162/2026, published 30 October 2026. Official English on the avize-radio page. Sighting 300931 UTC October 2026. Position 44-30,94 N 029-33,70 E. Dangerous drifting object. General drift south. Navigate with caution. Keep a berth of 2 NM. Cancel 021000 UTC 2 November 2026. Romanian page: 11:31 local 30 October, cancel 12:00 local 2 November. The notice names neither hull, IMO, cargo, bunker, wreck buoy, light, mine nor attacker. This is not 158/2026, not 766/26, not 768/26, not 161/2026, and not 151/2026.
- Hold the clock, the plot and the cancel. The working sighting is 300931 UTC 30 October. The working position is 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E. The working berth is two nautical miles, not Khoryv’s one nautical mile and not Khoryv’s five cables. The working kill time is 021000 UTC 2 November unless a later ARN replaces it. Do not brief Sunday as a standing wreck. Do not drop the circle on Sunday afternoon because the object “must have gone south.” Plot the Thursday fix, keep the berth, and keep a lookout up-drift and down-drift.
- Hold Khoryv and Contship Jet on their own sheets. ARN 158/2026 remains the dedicated 43-49.50 N, 028-53.37 E still-afloat Khoryv wreck-move, one nautical mile, three missing. NAVWARN 766/26 remains the dedicated 43-30.60 N, 028-43.69 E five-cable Khoryv keep-clear east of Shabla. NAVWARN 768/26 remains the dedicated Contship Jet wreck and more-than-20-container watch at 43-07.80 N 028-45.36 E. 162/2026 does not reprint those hulls or those plots. Do not move Khoryv east. Do not convert Thursday’s object into a Kaliakra container.
- Hold ARN 161/2026 as a separate object with a today cancel. 161/2026 remains 45-05.97 N 029-47.93 E, sighting 291000 UTC 29 October, two-nautical-mile berth, cancel 011100 UTC 1 November. That is a different plot, farther north. Do not merge it onto 44-30.94 N because both print a south drift. ARN 151/2026 already cancelled at 261100 UTC 26 October. Wine Trader remains ARN 145/2026 at 45-00.40 N 029-59.92 E. Royad Mammadov remains 44-27.64 N 029-46.90 E. Progress IV remains 44-37.64 N 029-48.14 E.
- Do not invent an object type. 162/2026 prints a dangerous drifting object. It does not print a mine, a container, a net, or a part of military equipment. The standing coastline recommendation and the standing mine-danger notice remain wrap. Report mine-like objects on VHF 16 to MRCC Constanta, the Directorate and the Coast Guard. Do not brief a completed mine-clearance from a two-nautical-mile berth. Do not brief a Romanian port shutdown.
- Keep Saturday’s Bulgarian board and the Neptun Alpha exercise off this circle. 775/26 remains the two-hour
[email protected]pre-entry report. 776/26 remains the Galata diving box 3–5 November. 777/26 remains cutter 331 in Burgas Bay 3–6 November. 757/26 remains the Varna Lake wrap, including today’s 0800–1600 UTC window. ARN 157/2026 remains the 20-nautical-mile exercise around 44-02.79 N, 030-35.25 E through 032130 UTC 3 November. Watch a later ARN that moves 44-30.94 N 029-33.70 E, names the object, marks a buoy, prints pollution, or extends past 021000 UTC — not a Khoryv eastward jump and not a closed search.
Regulas Shipping will keep lining Sunday morning’s ARN 162/2026 two-nautical-mile berth at 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E against Tuesday’s dedicated Khoryv wreck-move and against Thursday’s dedicated Contship Jet container watch so operators can treat the eastern Romanian plot as an unnamed drifting-object keep-clear through Monday 1000 UTC, not as a wreck move or a port closure.
