Spain’s NAVAREA III coordinator has issued a numbered oceanographic-work warning that sits beside yesterday afternoon’s dedicated weekly in-force list, not inside it. The working primary retrieved this run is NAVAREA III 0169/26: CENTRAL MEDITERRANEAN SEA. OCEANOGRAPHIC WORK ON THE BRITOIL CENTURION (IMO 9619177 / MMSI 566921000). DAYS 05 NOV 26 TO 15 FEB 27. FOLLOWING THE DOTTED LINE: group A of seven positions from 42-11.718N 009-59.778E to 40-51.515N 010-55.697E, and group B of twenty-two positions from 41-24.536N 006-10.312E to 38-24.205N 010-30.113E. WIDE RECEIPT IS REQUESTED. Industry reprints first carried the numbered text on 3 November, with a last-modified stamp of 13:00 UTC that afternoon. That is Wednesday’s working NAVAREA III oceanographic instrument. It is a named-hull survey track, not a weekly group-45 rewrite of dedicated 0168/26, not a Black Sea wreck, and not a Hormuz Attack PDF.
The warning is a NAVAREA III product. It is not NAVAREA IX 428/26. It is not a Bulgarian NAVWARN 789. It is not UKMTO 196-26. This morning’s dedicated IMO board remains 128 confirmed incidents as at 3 November, with 24 seafarer fatalities. Masters who brief Wednesday afternoon as a new Mediterranean exclusion zone, as a completed RAM status on the NAVAREA text, as a seabed-cleaning finding promoted onto 0169/26, or as weekly group 44 already reprinting 0169 in its 2026 list will have over-read a dotted-line survey watch. 0169/26 tells the bridge which hull, which IMO and MMSI pair, which dates, and which two point-groups to plot. It does not print a keep-clear radius, a VHF working channel, a flag, a cancel DTG beyond the 15 February end date, or a restricted-manoeuvre line.
What 0169/26 actually printed
The hydrographic text is short and is the working primary. CENTRAL MEDITERRANEAN SEA. Oceanographic work on the Britoil Centurion, IMO 9619177, MMSI 566921000. Days 5 November 2026 to 15 February 2027. Following the dotted line. Group A: 42-11.718N 009-59.778E, 41-55.463N 010-06.575E, 41-48.921N 010-22.386E, 41-36.287N 010-32.817E, 41-18.762N 010-35.890E, 41-02.470N 010-42.350E, 40-51.515N 010-55.697E. Group B: 41-24.536N 006-10.312E, 41-15.352N 006-42.299E, 41-04.447N 006-55.017E, 40-46.984N 006-58.881E, 40-29.057N 006-59.907E, 40-11.212N 007-01.863E, 39-53.531N 007-05.221E, 39-36.134N 007-09.841E, 39-23.905N 007-21.336E, 39-17.645N 007-32.114E, 39-07.245N 007-40.415E, 38-54.093N 007-44.943E, 38-47.211N 007-55.733E, 38-34.105N 008-08.816E, 38-24.404N 008-23.951E, 38-22.900N 008-37.252E, 38-27.204N 008-54.302E, 38-26.992N 009-12.300E, 38-27.619N 009-30.256E, 38-30.561N 009-53.983E, 38-25.976N 010-11.262E, 38-24.205N 010-30.113E. Wide receipt is requested. Stay with that wording. The coordinator printed neither a keep-clear radius, a wreck buoy, a least depth, a fishing or anchoring prohibition, a restricted-in-ability-to-manoeuvre line, a VHF channel, a flag, a support-tug list, nor a cancel DTG other than the printed 15 February end of work. Do not invent a 10-nautical-mile receipt. Do not invent a SafetyNet kill time of 092359 UTC 9 November on this number. That cancel belongs to dedicated 0168/26, the weekly wrapper, not to this survey.
The geometry is the first briefing fact. Group A is a seven-point dotted line in the Tyrrhenian, starting east of southern Corsica near 42-11.7N 009-59.8E and running south-southeast toward 40-51.5N 010-55.7E, west of the Italian mainland approaches around Rome and Naples. Group B is a twenty-two-point dotted line that starts south of the French coast near 41-24.5N 006-10.3E, runs south along about 007E west of Corsica and Sardinia, then turns east under Sardinia along about 38-25N into the Sardinia Channel, ending near 38-24.2N 010-30.1E. That is two tracks, not one box. It is not a circular exclusion. It is not a TSS amendment. Bonifacio, the west-Sardinia lane, the Sardinia Channel and the Tyrrhenian west-of-Italy lane all see a point-group. Do not brief a Gibraltar-to-Suez corridor closure from a dotted line. Do not brief a Corsica territorial-sea shutdown. Plot both groups. Keep a lookout for a named survey hull that will be restricted in practice even though 0169/26 does not print COLREGS Rule 3(g) language.
The date line is the second briefing fact. Work is printed as days 5 November 2026 to 15 February 2027. Wednesday afternoon is 4 November. The window opens tomorrow, 5 November, and runs more than fourteen weeks. 0169/26 does not print daily hours. It does not print a night-only or daylight-only limit. It does not print a weather clause. A passage plan that treats 5 November as a one-day survey has under-read a winter-into-February track. A passage plan that drops the watch after weekly group 44 kills itself at 092359 UTC 9 November has applied 0168/26’s wrapper cancel to the wrong number. 0169/26 is a named-hull radio alert. It lives until 15 February 2027 unless a later NAVAREA III cancels or amends it.
The identification line is the third briefing fact. The coordinator named the hull, the IMO number and the MMSI. Britoil Centurion. IMO 9619177. MMSI 566921000. That is tighter than yesterday afternoon’s dedicated 0168/26, which named no survey ship. It is not a flag print. It is not a call-sign print. It is not a restricted-manoeuvre print. Open-register colour is held separately and is not a 0169/26 fact: the 566-series MMSI is a Singapore mid-range in public allocations, and commercial registers list the hull as an offshore / construction support vessel — not a NAVAREA finding, not a flag-state confirmation, and not a class survey. Do not promote a Singapore flag, a DP class or a crane rating onto the numbered text.
Industry-reprint colour, held separately: SeaLagom first carried 0169/26 with an issued stamp of 3 November 00:00 UTC and a last-modified stamp of 3 November 13:00 UTC, matching this morning’s unused-primary note that the warning was first seen at 13:10 UTC on 3 November. Italian coastal warning 154/26, received 3 November 11:13 UTC and updated overnight, reprints the same two tracks as TRACK 1 and TRACK 2 and adds colour that 0169/26 does not print: an “oceanogrephic campaign for seabed cleaning,” a vessel restricted in her ability to manoeuvre, and a finding that shipping, fishing, anchorage and every surface or underwater activity is dangerous, with a broadcast-valid window of 1050 on 3 November to 0250 on 6 November Italian time. Hold 154/26 as wrap. Do not promote seabed-cleaning, RAM status, a fishing ban or the Italian broadcast window onto 0169/26. The NAVAREA text is oceanographic work, a dotted line, wide receipt. That is the product.
What this is not
This is not a rewrite of dedicated NAVAREA III 0168/26. Yesterday afternoon’s dedicated piece remains weekly group 44, in force 030600 UTC 3 November, 2022:0092, 0122, 0124; 2024:0034, 0113; 2026:0036, 0086, 0122, 0132, 0137, 0160, 0168, cancel 092359 UTC 9 November. 0168/26’s 2026 list does not print 0169. That is expected. 0169/26 was first seen after the 030600 UTC snapshot. Paragraph 2 of 0168/26 still points at the Spanish Hydrographic Institute NAVAREA page as the complete radio-alert file. Paragraph 3 still points at weekly Notices to Mariners, section 5, for new alerts. Paragraph 1 still limits SafetyNet and SafetyCast at 1200 UTC and 2359 UTC to warnings less than 42 days old. 0169/26 is less than 42 days old. Masters who treat “not on the 0168 list” as “not in force” have under-read a weekly wrapper that does not claim to be a live feed of every subsequent number. Replace nothing in the 0168 folder. Add 0169 beside it. Do not wait for weekly group 45 before plotting the dotted line. Group 45, if and when it comes, will be a later in-force list, not a condition precedent for tomorrow’s start of work.
This is not Key Manhattan, not Sea Guardian, and not a Black Sea rig watch. Official 0086/26 remains Adriatic drilling by Key Manhattan at 44-05.12N 013-45.27E through 202359 UTC 20 November. Official 0036/26 remains NATO Operation Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean until further notice, voluntary reporting requested. Official 0160/26, 0132/26, 0122/26 and 0137/26 remain Yavuz, Fatih, Abdulhamid Han and Neptun Alpha in the Black Sea. 0169/26 prints none of those hulls and none of those boxes. A DPA who briefs Wednesday afternoon as “NAVAREA III has moved the Adriatic rig west onto 006E” has borrowed 0086/26’s name and dropped the Britoil Centurion track. A DPA who briefs it as a Sea Guardian upgrade has converted a survey watch into a security reporting scheme. Keep those numbers on their own lines.
This is not NAVAREA IX 427/26 or 428/26, and it is not this morning’s dedicated IMO 128-count. This morning’s dedicated 427/26 remains the Shura Island seaplane landing and operational zone on BA 159, four corners around 25-29.82N 036-57.18E. 428/26 remains wrap on that file, Amaala Triple Bay, four corners around 26-38.92N 036-13.32E. This morning’s dedicated IMO board remains 128 confirmed / 24 dead as at 3 November, with new top rows Largo Atom, Selat Storm and Arzanah. UKMTO still ends at 195-26. NAVAREA IX still ends at 428/26. No 196-26, no 429/26, no Update 111 and no IMO 129 this run. A Central Mediterranean dotted line does not belong on that tape.
This is not Wednesday afternoon’s dedicated ARN 163/2026, and it is not a Bulgarian NAVWARN. ARN 163/2026 is a Romanian Black Sea floating-piping box at 43-46N 028-35E through 152159 UTC 15 December. Dedicated 768/26 remains Contship Jet. Dedicated 766/26 remains Khoryv. Dedicated 784/26 remains the Ahtopol tank. Dedicated 779/26 remains four drifting containers east of Burgas Bay. 0169/26 prints none of those plots. Do not collapse a Tyrrhenian and Sardinia Channel survey onto a Constanta-approaches works box, and do not collapse it onto a Varna Radio debris field.
This is not a completed Italian coastal primary. 154/26 is wrap. Use it to confirm that the two tracks match group A and group B. Do not use it to add seabed-cleaning, RAM lights, a fishing-and-anchoring ban, or a 6 November Italian-time broadcast kill onto the NAVAREA. If a later NAVAREA III reprints RAM language or a numeric berth, that later number is the new primary. Until then, brief 0169/26 as oceanographic work on a named hull along a dotted line, with wide receipt requested.
Operational implications
For a master already shaping a Gibraltar–Malta, Fos / Marseille–Algiers, Bonifacio, west-Sardinia, Sardinia Channel, Palermo, Civitavecchia, Naples or Genoa–Tunis passage between 5 November and 15 February, Wednesday afternoon is a CPA and lookout problem before it is a security rewrite. The coordinator named the hull and printed two long tracks, not a circle. Group B starts in the approaches south of the Gulf of Lion and runs the west side of Corsica and Sardinia before cutting east under Sardinia. Group A occupies the Tyrrhenian west of the Italian mainland. A passage plan that only budgeted 0086/26’s Adriatic wide berth, or that treated the Tyrrhenian as clean because 0100/26 already dropped off weekly group 44, has not budgeted a named survey ship that will be on the water tomorrow. Survey gear in the water, even when a NAVAREA is silent on RAM status, is a close-quarters and fishing-gear problem. Give the hull a wide practical berth. Do not pass between the ship and unmarked gear. Do not assume AIS will show streamers, buoys or a towed array. Do not assume night work is off because hours were not printed.
The weekly-wrapper split is the operational content a DPA has to get right. 0168/26 still tells the bridge which NAVAREA III numbers were in force at 0600 UTC on 3 November and still kills itself at 092359 UTC on 9 November. 0169/26 is a later numbered alert. It is less than 42 days old, so it belongs on the twice-daily SafetyNet and SafetyCast broadcast even though it is not yet a 2026 number on the 0168 list. Pull the full text from the Spanish Hydrographic Institute page or from the weekly Notices, section 5, if the 1200 UTC broadcast is missed. Do not wait for group 45 to put 0169 in the 2026 column before the bridge plots 42-11.718N 009-59.778E and 41-24.536N 006-10.312E. Charterers asking whether “NAVAREA III has gone quiet after group 44 dropped 0100/26” will not be answered by this file. What arrived is a three-month Mediterranean survey, not a firing-box all-clear.
Italian coastal 154/26, used only as wrap, is the local-language reminder that a ship on those tracks may be treated as restricted in her ability to manoeuvre and that fishing, anchoring and underwater work on the track are locally described as dangerous. That colour does not amend 0169/26. It does tell a master inbound to Civitavecchia, Naples, Palermo, Cagliari, Ajaccio or Bonifacio not to treat the dotted line as a paper exercise. If the hull is encountered, COLREGS Rule 18 and a practical wide berth apply whether or not the NAVAREA printed RAM. Report actual close-quarters, gear in the water, or an unlit hull to the coastal authority that owns the water — MRCC Roma, MRSC Livorno, MRSC Genova, MRCC La Garde / MRSC Corse, or the Tunisian or Algerian authority as the case may be — and to the company security officer. Logging 0169/26 is not a substitute for a sighting report.
Keep the dedicated files on their own lines. 0168/26 remains yesterday afternoon’s dedicated weekly in-force list through 092359 UTC 9 November. 0086/26 remains Key Manhattan. 0036/26 remains Sea Guardian voluntary reporting. 0160/26, 0132/26, 0122/26 and 0137/26 remain the Black Sea rig and platform watches. This morning’s dedicated 427/26 remains Shura Island. This morning’s dedicated IMO 128-count remains Largo Atom, Selat Storm and Arzanah. 194-26 and 195-26 remain last night’s dedicated UKMTO Attacks. Do not recast 4 November afternoon as a Mediterranean exclusion zone, as a 0168 rewrite, as a seabed-cleaning NAVAREA, or as a completed group-45 list.
What Operators Should Note
- Log 0169/26 as a named-hull oceanographic track, not as a weekly-list rewrite and not as a Mediterranean exclusion zone. Official NAVAREA III 0169/26. Central Mediterranean Sea. Oceanographic work on the Britoil Centurion, IMO 9619177, MMSI 566921000. Days 5 November 2026 to 15 February 2027. Dotted line, group A seven points from 42-11.718N 009-59.778E to 40-51.515N 010-55.697E, group B twenty-two points from 41-24.536N 006-10.312E to 38-24.205N 010-30.113E. Wide receipt requested. The warning names neither flag, VHF, keep-clear radius, RAM status, fishing ban nor a 9 November cancel. First seen 13:10 UTC 3 November. Replace nothing in the 0168/26 folder; add this number beside it.
- Plot both groups, not a single circle. Group A is Tyrrhenian, east of Corsica, west of the Italian mainland. Group B starts south of France, runs west of Corsica and Sardinia, then east under Sardinia into the Sardinia Channel. Bonifacio, west-Sardinia, Civitavecchia, Naples, Palermo, Cagliari, Fos / Marseille–Algiers and Gibraltar–Malta passages all see a point-group. Do not brief a corridor closure. Do not drop one group because the other is farther from the next port.
- Hold the 5 November start and the 15 February end. Work opens tomorrow, 5 November, and runs through 15 February 2027. No daily hours are printed. Do not apply 0168/26’s 092359 UTC 9 November wrapper cancel to this number. Do not treat 5 November as a one-day survey. Watch a later NAVAREA III that moves a point, adds a radius, prints RAM language, or cancels 0169 before 15 February.
- Do not promote Italian coastal 154/26 onto the NAVAREA. 154/26 reprints the same two tracks as TRACK 1 and TRACK 2 and adds seabed-cleaning, RAM status, and a shipping / fishing / anchoring danger line, with a broadcast window through 0250 Italian time 6 November. That is wrap. 0169/26 remains oceanographic work, dotted line, wide receipt. Use 154/26 to confirm the tracks, not to amend the numbered NAVAREA.
- Keep 0168/26 as the weekly wrapper, not as a veto on 0169. Dedicated 0168/26, weekly group 44, in force 030600 UTC 3 November, cancel 092359 UTC 9 November, still lists 2026:0036, 0086, 0122, 0132, 0137, 0160, 0168 and does not yet print 0169. 0169 is less than 42 days old and belongs on SafetyNet / SafetyCast at 1200 UTC and 2359 UTC. Pull the full text from the Spanish Hydrographic Institute page if the broadcast is missed. Do not wait for weekly group 45 before the bridge plots the hull.
- Keep the other NAVAREA III and Black Sea files on their own sheets. 0086/26 remains Key Manhattan. 0036/26 remains Sea Guardian. 0160/26, 0132/26, 0122/26 and 0137/26 remain Yavuz, Fatih, Abdulhamid Han and Neptun Alpha. This morning’s dedicated 427/26 remains Shura Island; 428/26 remains wrap. IMO remains 128 / 24 as at 3 November. UKMTO still ends at 195-26. NAVAREA IX still ends at 428/26. No 196-26, no 429/26, no Update 111, no IMO 129 this run. Sightings of the hull, gear in the water, or a close-quarters situation go to the coastal authority that owns the water and to the CSO.
Regulas Shipping will keep lining NAVAREA III 0169/26 against yesterday afternoon’s dedicated 0168/26 weekly list so operators can treat Wednesday’s tape as a named Britoil Centurion oceanographic track from 5 November to 15 February, not as a Mediterranean exclusion zone, a seabed-cleaning NAVAREA, or a completed rewrite of weekly group 44.
