The Hydrographer of Pakistan issued NAVAREA IX 431/26 at 060300 UTC on 6 November as a Southern Gulf / UAE geotechnical-survey warning. The official text, retrieved from the National Hydrographic Office product file 20261106SEC 431.txt, puts a geotechnical survey in progress at the Port of Fujairah by the self-elevating platform SKATE 3D. The charts cited are BA 2858, 3520 and 3526. Mariners are cautioned. The notice cancels itself at 132359 UTC on 13 November. That is the working primary. It is a numbered port-survey product on Fujairah harbour water. It is not a rewrite of August’s dedicated 290/26 Fujairah reclamation-buoy line, not a rewrite of Wednesday morning’s dedicated 427/26 Shura Island seaplane zone, and not last night’s dedicated Warning 196-26 or the companion IMO 129-count on Velos Sapphire.
Pakistan’s NAVAREA IX in-force table, as of Friday 6 November, now opens with 431/26 as the first row: DTG 060300 UTC 6 November, region Southern Gulf UAE, Fujairah Port, description GEOTECNICAL SURVEY OPERATION. Hold that table spelling. The same Friday table still carries 430/26 and 429/26 as the second and third rows, both DTG 051500 UTC 5 November, both described as self-cancelling — same-board wrap on this file, unused as dedicated pieces. 428/26 remains Wednesday morning’s unused Amaala Triple Bay seaplane wrap. 427/26 remains Wednesday morning’s dedicated Shura Island seaplane zone. 425/26 remains Sunday night’s dedicated Selat Storm wreck. Masters who brief Friday morning as a Hormuz Attack, as a Fujairah port closure, or as a second 290/26 reclamation product will have merged a compact jack-up survey box into either a security wreck or an August buoy field.
What the warning actually printed
The hydrographic text is short and is the working primary. DTG 060300 UTC NOV 2026. NAVAREA IX 431/26. SOUTHERN GULF. UAE. CHARTS BA 2858, 3520 AND 3526. 1. GEOTECHNICAL SURVEY IS IN PROGRESS AT PORT OF FUJAIRAH BY SELF ELEVATING PLATFORM SKATE 3D IN FOLLOWING AREA: 25-10.08N 056-22.38E, 25-09.83N 056-22.53E, 25-09.18N 056-22.63E, 25-09.43N 056-22-47E. MARINERS CAUTIONED. 2. CANCEL THIS MSG 132359 UTC NOV 26. Stay with that wording. The coordinator printed the fourth longitude as 056-22-47E, with a hyphen in the minutes-and-seconds group; do not silently tidy it into 056-22.47E. The NHO table printed GEOTECNICAL; do not silently tidy that into geotechnical on the table line. The coordinator printed neither an IMO number, an MMSI, a flag, a call sign, a RAM status, a VHF working channel, a numeric berth in cables or metres, a diving window, a dredging plant, a guard-ship name, a port-closure sentence nor a keep-clear radius around the four corners. Stay with the four corners, SKATE 3D, Port of Fujairah, mariners cautioned, and the 132359 UTC 13 November cancel.
The geometry is the first briefing fact. The four corners sit between about 25-09.18N and 25-10.08N, 056-22.38E and 056-22.63E — a compact harbour box on the order of nine-tenths of a nautical mile north–south and a quarter of a nautical mile east–west, on BA 2858 / 3520 / 3526 water inside the Port of Fujairah, not in the offshore Fujairah / Khor Fakkan tanker anchorage and not in the Strait of Hormuz. Plot the corners. A passage plan that only carried August’s 290/26 reclamation buoys, or that treated Fujairah as empty harbour water because last night’s dedicated files sat at Madinat ash Shamal and in the South Aegean, has not budgeted a named jack-up on the port plot from 060300 UTC 6 November through 132359 UTC 13 November. Do not treat the offshore anchorage as this box. Do not treat Khor Fakkan as closed. Do not run 6–13 November as if the Port of Fujairah fairway were empty of survey plant.
The clock is the second briefing fact. 431/26 carries a 060300 UTC 6 November issue time and a printed cancel at 132359 UTC 13 November. That is eight days on the port plot, not a two-hour window and not an until-further-notice jack-up. A passage plan that treats 25-10.08N 056-22.38E as live after 132359 UTC 13 November without a replacement NAVAREA has over-read a self-cancelling survey. A passage plan that drops the box at dusk on 6 November, or that only budgets a weekend, has under-read a cancel that sits on 13 November. The coordinator did not print daily hours inside those eight days. Do not invent a 0800–1600 UTC working window. Do not invent a night suspension. Hold the survey as in progress from the 060300 UTC stamp through the printed cancel.
The missing IMO, MMSI, flag, RAM and numeric-berth lines are omissions, not a completed jack-up order. Open-register colour, held separately and not as a 431/26 fact, attaches MMSI 620671000 and a Comoros flag to a hull broadcasting as SKATE 3D, with no IMO number in that register. Do not promote that MMSI, that flag, or “IMO 0” onto the NAVAREA. Do not invent Channel 16 as a survey working channel. Do not borrow 411/26’s Qatar pipelay berth, 0169/26’s wide-receipt line, or 290/26’s buoy list onto a polygon that already says mariners cautioned. Give the four corners and the named platform. Do not invent a one-nautical-mile halo around them.
Same-board wrap, not this berth: 430/26, 051500 UTC 5 November, BUOY RESTORED, CANCEL NAVAREA IX 481/25 AND THIS MSG. 429/26, 051500 UTC 5 November, OPERATION COMPLETED, CANCEL NAVAREA IX 453/25 AND THIS MSG. Both were left unused as dedicated on last night’s 5 November 23:30 desk; they remain wrap, not Friday morning’s survey. 428/26 remains the unused Amaala Triple Bay seaplane zone on BA 159. 427/26 remains Wednesday morning’s dedicated Shura Island seaplane zone. 426/26 remains self-cancelled at 030800 UTC 3 November; the Friday NHO row is a stale listing, not a live 6 November shoot. 425/26 remains Sunday night’s dedicated Selat Storm wreck at 26-22.55N 056-20.47E. 424/26 remains Monday afternoon’s dedicated 3–4 November firing box, now past 040700 UTC 4 November. 423/26 remains the 310300 UTC 31 October in-force catalogue. 420/26 remains the dedicated RITI fire-and-anchor. 417/26 remains the dedicated MSV Quba wreck. 414/26 remains the dedicated November Pakistan firing series through 302000 UTC 30 November. 290/26 remains the in-force Fujairah reclamation-buoy line, DTG 201500 UTC 20 August. Those clocks are separate.
What this is not
This is not a rewrite of 290/26, and it is not a second Fujairah reclamation product. 290/26 remains the August buoy field for an ongoing reclamation operation at Fujairah Port. 431/26 names a self-elevating platform, names a geotechnical survey, names four corners around 25-09.6N 056-22.5E, and kills itself on 13 November. 290/26 does not name SKATE 3D. 431/26 does not reprint 290/26’s buoy list. A passage plan that drops the reclamation buoys because a jack-up is now on the Friday table has deleted an August product the coordinator has not cancelled. A passage plan that files 431/26 under “Fujairah buoys” has put a named platform on the wrong instrument.
This is not a rewrite of 394/26, and it is not an unlit-buoy casualty. 394/26 remains the 211500 UTC 21 October Southern Gulf / UAE unlit-buoy caution. 431/26 prints neither a buoy name nor an unlit line. Do not brief Friday morning as “the Fujairah lights went out.” Do not convert a geotechnical survey into an aids-to-navigation defect.
This is not a rewrite of 427/26 or 428/26. Wednesday morning’s dedicated 427/26 remains a Shura Island seaplane landing and operational zone on BA Chart 159, four corners around 25-29.82N 036-57.18E, mariners cautioned, no printed cancel. 428/26 remains the unused Amaala Triple Bay companion on the same 031500 UTC 3 November stamp. Those are Red Sea seaplane polygons. 431/26 adds BA 2858, 3520 and 3526, drops BA 159, uses a Fujairah harbour survey around 25-10N 056-22E, names SKATE 3D, and prints a 13 November cancel. A passage plan that files 431/26 under “seaplane zone” has put a jack-up on the wrong coast.
This is not a security-incident NAVAREA and not a wreck product. 425/26 remains the dedicated Selat Storm wreck. 420/26 remains the dedicated RITI fire-and-anchor. 417/26 remains the dedicated Quba wreck. 389/26 remains the Gulf of Oman oil-tanker security-incident caution on the dedicated Petro Dolphin file. Last night’s dedicated Warning 196-26 remains an unnamed tanker Attack 50 nautical miles north of Madinat ash Shamal. Last night’s dedicated IMO 129-count remains the first official IMO print of Velos Sapphire (IMO 9321201), Damaged, no pollution, one seafarer missing. Dedicated Update 111 remains the 5 November JMIC note, ICOD 051300 UTC, 172 confirmed, Hormuz SEVERE. 431/26 names none of those hulls, prints no projectile, and does not sit 50 nautical miles north of Qatar. JMIC Update 111’s congestion colour — about 179 hulls at Fujairah / Khor Fakkan — is colour on last night’s dedicated 111 file, not a 431/26 count and not a reason to treat the harbour survey as an anchorage closure.
This is not 411/26, and it is not a Qatar pipelay rewrite. 411/26 remains the dedicated McDermott DB30 subsea-pipeline berth in the central Gulf / Qatar through 26 November. 431/26 is a Fujairah harbour jack-up, not a Qatar trench. This is also not NAVAREA III 0169/26 on Britoil Centurion in the Central Mediterranean, not HNHS 1336/26 on NG Surveyor in the South Aegean, and not Thursday night’s dedicated NAVWARN 789/26 Akademik mile inside Bulgarian territorial sea. Those are survey and research products on other coordinators. They do not belong on a Fujairah 25-10N watch.
This is not a Fujairah, Khor Fakkan or Hormuz port closure, not a Gulf of Oman TSS change, and not a rewrite of 219/26’s Dubai no-anchoring zone. 431/26 prints mariners cautioned inside four harbour corners. It does not close the Port of Fujairah. It does not close the offshore tanker anchorage. It does not reopen Hormuz. It does not cancel 414/26, 425/26, 427/26 or 290/26. It is not a Houthi merchant-attack product. Update 111 still prints the last confirmed Houthi merchant attack as 24 August. 431/26 prints a geotechnical survey in progress — not a strike, not a projectile, and not a keep-clear in nautical miles.
Operational implications
For a master inbound to the Port of Fujairah, shifting between the inner harbour and the offshore anchorage, or bunkering and waiting on BA 2858 / 3520 / 3526 water this week, 431/26 is a harbour-plot amendment before it is a construction story. The four corners sit in a compact box on the order of nine-tenths by a quarter of a nautical mile. The notice names the platform. It does not print a vertical limit, a lighting scheme, a VHF working channel, a named guard ship, or a numeric berth. Mariners cautioned is the whole instruction, with a hard cancel at 132359 UTC on 13 November. A passage plan that treats 25-10.08N 056-22.38E as a charted obstruction after that cancel without a replacement NAVAREA has over-read a self-cancelling survey. A passage plan that only annotates “jack-up, Fujairah” without the four corners has under-read a numbered NAVAREA that exists to be plotted.
290/26 is the second Fujairah problem on the same port. The August reclamation-buoy field remains in force. Hulls working the Port of Fujairah this week need both the buoy field and the jack-up box. Do not assume the reclamation buoys are idle because a geotechnical survey is now the top NHO row. Do not assume the jack-up is idle because the fixture is “only an anchorage wait.” The coordinator issued a new number against the harbour, not a cancellation of the August field.
For DPAs with Fujairah, Khor Fakkan, Hormuz, Sohar or Gulf of Oman stems this week, the operational question is whether the planned harbour track clips the four-corner list, not whether the United Arab Emirates “closed Fujairah.” 431/26 does not close the port. It does not close the offshore anchorage. It does not reopen Hormuz. It does not cancel 290/26, 414/26, 425/26 or 427/26. A fixture that only budgeted last night’s Madinat ash Shamal Attack, Wednesday morning’s Shura seaplane zone, or Sunday night’s Selat Storm wreck has not budgeted a named jack-up on the Fujairah harbour plot through 13 November. 414/26 remains the November four-box Pakistan firing product through 30 November. 411/26 remains the Qatar pipelay berth through 26 November. Those clocks are separate.
The stale rows on this morning’s NHO table are a second briefing trap. 426/26 is still printed as live weapon firing. That notice self-cancelled at 030800 UTC 3 November. 424/26 is still printed as live weapon firing. That notice cancelled at 040700 UTC 4 November. 416/26 is still printed as a possible pirate-action-group off Somalia. That notice printed a 032359 UTC 3 November cancel. Do not restore those products because the Friday table still lists them. Do not treat 431/26 as the replacement for any of those cancels. The new work is the Fujairah jack-up box. 429/26 and 430/26 are housekeeping self-cancels from yesterday afternoon, unused as dedicated. Everything else on the Friday table is either a dedicated earlier file or a stale listing.
Do not recast 6 November as a Fujairah exclusion zone inside the four corners, a named-platform casualty, a rewrite of 290/26, a rewrite of 427/26, or a Hormuz product. The confirmed facts are NAVAREA IX 431/26, 060300 UTC 6 November, Port of Fujairah, SKATE 3D, BA 2858 / 3520 / 3526, four corners, mariners cautioned, cancel 132359 UTC 13 November, with 429/26 and 430/26 the same-board self-cancel wrap and dedicated 290/26 still in force on the same Friday table.
What Operators Should Note
- Log 431/26 as a Fujairah harbour jack-up survey, not as a port closure and not as a Hormuz file. NAVAREA IX 431/26, 060300 UTC 6 November. Southern Gulf / UAE. Charts BA 2858, 3520 and 3526. Geotechnical survey in progress at Port of Fujairah by self-elevating platform SKATE 3D in following area: 25-10.08N 056-22.38E / 25-09.83N 056-22.53E / 25-09.18N 056-22.63E / 25-09.43N 056-22-47E. Mariners cautioned. Cancel 132359 UTC 13 November. Official file
20261106SEC 431.txt. NHO Friday table: first row, GEOTECNICAL SURVEY OPERATION. The notice names neither IMO, MMSI, flag, RAM, VHF, numeric berth nor a harbour-master closure. Hold the printed hyphen in 056-22-47E. This is not 290/26, not 427/26, not 196-26, not Update 111, and not a Fujairah shutdown. - Plot one compact 25-10N harbour polygon, not the offshore anchorage. The four corners sit about 0.9 by 0.25 nautical miles inside the Port of Fujairah on BA 2858 / 3520 / 3526. Do not slide the box out to the Fujairah / Khor Fakkan tanker anchorage. Do not invent a VHF working channel, a numeric berth, a diving window or a night suspension. Open-register MMSI 620671000 / Comoros colour stays off the NAVAREA. 290/26 remains the dedicated August reclamation-buoy field at the same port — unused as a rewrite, still in force, not cancelled by 431/26.
- Give the printed cancel, then kill the watch. In progress from 060300 UTC 6 November. Cancel 132359 UTC 13 November. Do not treat the box as until further notice. Do not drop it at dusk on 6 November. Do not keep avoiding 25-10.08N 056-22.38E after 132359 UTC 13 November without a replacement NAVAREA. Do not invent daily working hours inside those eight days.
- Keep the stale NHO rows and yesterday’s self-cancels off the live folder. 430/26 restored a buoy and cancelled 481/25. 429/26 completed an operation and cancelled 453/25. Both remain wrap, unused as dedicated. 426/26 self-cancelled at 030800 UTC 3 November; the Friday listing is stale. 424/26 cancelled at 040700 UTC 4 November; the Friday listing is stale. 416/26 printed a 032359 UTC 3 November cancel. Do not restore those numbers because they still appear on the 6 November table.
- Keep the Hormuz wrecks, the Red Sea seaplane zones and the Pakistan firing series on their own files. 425/26 remains dedicated Selat Storm at 26-22.55N 056-20.47E. 420/26 remains dedicated RITI. 417/26 remains dedicated Quba. 427/26 remains dedicated Shura Island on BA 159. 428/26 remains unused Amaala wrap. 414/26 remains the November four-box product through 302000 UTC 30 November. 411/26 remains the Qatar pipelay berth through 26 November. 389/26 Petro Dolphin remains an in-force security-incident caution. 423/26 remains the 31 October in-force list. Last night’s 196-26, last night’s IMO 129-count on Velos Sapphire, and last night’s Update 111 remain their own dedicated files.
- Fujairah, Khor Fakkan and Hormuz are not closed by this notice. Port of Fujairah traffic now carries a named jack-up on a four-corner harbour plot through 13 November, with the August reclamation-buoy field still in force beside it. Watch a later NAVAREA that moves 25-10.08N 056-22.38E, adds a radius / RAM / VHF / IMO, or extends past 132359 UTC 13 November — not a completed soil campaign, not a Comoros naming, and not a Hormuz rewrite.
Regulas Shipping will keep lining NAVAREA IX 431/26 against the still-in-force 290/26 Fujairah reclamation-buoy field and against last night’s dedicated Hormuz and Arabian Gulf files so operators can treat the SKATE 3D harbour survey as a numbered 6–13 November caution, not as a port closure or a security wreck.
