Romania\u2019s Maritime Hydrographic Directorate has published a new radio navigational warning that is now the working keep-clear on floating piping for coastal protection works south of the Constanta approaches. The official English text, printed on the Directorate\u2019s avize-radio page as ARN 163\/2026, states: BLACK SEA. ROMANIA. PROTECTION WORKS. Until 15 December 2026, floating piping and for coastal protection works are installed in the area bounded by 43-46,38 N 028-34,86 E, 43-46,30 N 028-36,62 E, 43-47,50 N 028-36,72 E and 43-47,31 N 028-34,92 E. Mariners are advised to keep clear of the area and maintain a safe distance. Dangerous to navigation. Cancel this message on 152159 UTC December 2026. The notice is published 3 November 2026. The Romanian page, ARN 163\/2026, prints the same four corners as lucr\u0103ri protec\u021bie costier\u0103, tubulaturi plutitoare, a recommendation to round the zone at a safe distance, pericol pentru naviga\u021bie, and a cancel of 23:59 local on 15 December 2026. Industry coastal reprints carry the notice as 163\/26, active until 152159 UTC on 15 December.<\/p>\n
That is the working primary. Wednesday afternoon\u2019s product is a coastal-works 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 barge, a tug, a buoy colour, a numeric berth, a VHF working channel, or a harbour-master closure. It does not convert the piping into a mine, a drifting container, or a wreck. Sunday morning\u2019s dedicated ARN 162\/2026 piece on this desk was a two-nautical-mile drifting-object watch at 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E that self-cancelled at 021000 UTC on 2 November. That cancel clock has already passed. 162\/2026 is no longer on the live avize-radio page. Masters who brief Wednesday as a revival of Thursday\u2019s unnamed object, as a Khoryv inshore move, as a Contship Jet container rewrite, or as a rewrite of September\u2019s orange-buoy works box farther north will have merged a compact Mangalia-approaches piping watch into four other series.<\/p>\n
The hydrographic text is short and is the working primary. BLACK SEA. ROMANIA. PROTECTION WORKS. Published 3 November 2026. Until 15 December 2026. Floating piping and for coastal protection works. Area bounded by 43-46.38 N 028-34.86 E, 43-46.30 N 028-36.62 E, 43-47.50 N 028-36.72 E, 43-47.31 N 028-34.92 E. Mariners advised to keep clear of the area and maintain a safe distance. Dangerous to navigation. Cancel 152159 UTC 15 December 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 numeric berth in nautical miles or cables. It did not print orange buoys 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.<\/p>\n
The geometry is the first briefing fact. The four corners sit in a compact box about 1.2 nautical miles north-south and about 1.1 nautical miles east-west, around 43-46.7 N, 028-35.8 E. That is inshore, south of the Constanta traffic-separation scheme, in the Mangalia \/ 2 Mai \/ Vama Veche approaches, not in the eastern offshore water that Sunday\u2019s cancelled 162\/2026 occupied. It is not 44-30.94 N, 029-33.70 E. 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 keep-clear around the new box is a new plotted polygon. Sunday\u2019s cancelled drifting-object circle does not return because this box 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 a four-corner piping watch with a mid-December cancel clock.<\/p>\n
The standing recommended-routes notice, still on the same avize-radio page as ARN 119\/2024, is the second briefing fact, used as colour, not as a 163\/2026 amendment. Ships approaching and leaving Romanian harbours are still advised to use 43-47.59 N, 028-50.86 E and, as the case may be, recommended track 1 to 43-47.5 N, 028-37.61 E. The eastern corners of Wednesday\u2019s box sit at 028-36.62 E and 028-36.72 E. That is less than a nautical mile west of the inner waypoint of recommended track 1. A passage plan that only carried the 43-47.59 N, 028-50.86 E landfall, or that treated the last mile of track 1 as clean because cancelled 162\/2026 sat 60-plus nautical miles east, has not budgeted floating piping on the inshore side of that waypoint through 15 December. Do not treat track 1 as cancelled. Do not treat the inner waypoint as a piping berth. Plot the four corners. Keep a safe distance. Do not run the last mile of track 1 as if the water west of 028-37.61 E were empty.<\/p>\n
The cancel clock is the third briefing fact. ARN 163\/2026 kills itself at 152159 UTC on 15 December unless a later numbered notice replaces it. The Romanian page prints 23:59 local on 15 December. Those clocks match: 2159 UTC in December is 23:59 Eastern European Time. That is six weeks, not a 48-hour drifting-object watch. A passage plan that treats 43-46.4 N, 028-35.8 E as a charted obstruction after 152159 UTC without a replacement ARN has over-read a self-cancelling works box. A passage plan that drops the box in November because \u201cthe piping must have come ashore\u201d has under-read a notice that still holds until mid-December. The Directorate has not printed a later fix, a buoyed corridor through the box, or a reduced polygon. Plot the four corners. Keep a safe distance. Keep a lookout for unlit floating hose, pontoons and small craft until 152159 UTC 15 December or until a later ARN moves the plot.<\/p>\n
The missing numeric-berth line is an omission, not a completed CPA standard. 163\/2026 prints \u201ckeep clear\u201d and \u201cmaintain a safe distance\u201d and \u201cdangerous to navigation.\u201d It does not print two nautical miles. It does not print five cables. It does not print 500 metres. Sunday\u2019s cancelled 162\/2026 printed two nautical miles around a drifting object. Tuesday 27 October\u2019s dedicated ARN 158\/2026 printed one nautical mile around Khoryv. Thursday\u2019s dedicated NAVWARN 766\/26 printed five cables around Khoryv east of Shabla. Do not borrow those numbers onto Wednesday\u2019s piping box. Do not brief a two-nautical-mile circle around 43-47 N. Give the four-corner polygon a practical wide berth, especially at night and in the north wind that Varna Radio was still carrying as a gale-and-sea warning this morning, and do not invent a Directorate radius the English body does not print.<\/p>\n
This is not a rewrite of cancelled ARN 162\/2026, and it is not a Khoryv move. Sunday morning\u2019s dedicated Directorate piece remains the last Romanian drifting-object watch on this desk: ARN 162\/2026, published 30 October, sighting 300931 UTC, 44-30.94 N 029-33.70 E, two-nautical-mile berth, cancel 021000 UTC 2 November. That cancel has passed. The live English page no longer lists 162\/2026. Tuesday\u2019s dedicated ARN 158\/2026 remains the last Romanian wreck-move on M\/V Khoryv: 43-49.50 N, 028-53.37 E, remains afloat, capsized, three missing, one-nautical-mile keep-clear, report MRCC Constanta VHF 16 \/ mrcc@rna.ro. Thursday\u2019s dedicated Bulgarian NAVWARN 766\/26 remains the working five-cable keep-clear east of Shabla at 43-30.60 N, 028-43.69 E. 163\/2026 prints neither a drifting object nor Khoryv nor 44-30.94 N nor 43-49.50 N. A four-corner piping box and a cancelled two-nautical-mile unnamed-object circle are two instruments. Do not brief Wednesday as \u201cthe 44-30 N object came inshore.\u201d Do not replace 766\/26\u2019s five cables with a Mangalia works box.<\/p>\n
This is not a rewrite of NAVWARN 768\/26, and it is not a Contship Jet container rewrite. Thursday 29 October\u2019s 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. Monday\u2019s dedicated 779\/26 remains four drifting containers east of Burgas Bay. Tuesday morning\u2019s dedicated 784\/26 remains a drifting tank east of Ahtopol at 42-09.2 N 027-58.6 E. Wrap 786\/26, 787\/26 and 788\/26 remain the Maslen Nos lifeboat and the Burgas \/ Primorsko container watches. 163\/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 43-46 N inshore box are not the same plot. Do not convert Wednesday\u2019s piping into Saturday\u2019s dedicated container watch because both sit on the western Black Sea coast.<\/p>\n
This is not ARN 123\/2026, and it is not ARN 146\/2026. Official ARN 123\/2026, still on the Directorate English page, is the separate coastal-protection works farther north: until 31 January 2027, anchors for coastal protection works, marked by orange buoys, in the area bounded by 43-56.48 N 028-38.90 E, 43-57.24 N 028-38.94 E, 43-57.19 N 028-40.22 E and 43-56.44 N 028-40.17 E, keep clear, safe distance, cancel 312130 UTC 31 January 2027. That box sits about ten nautical miles north of Wednesday\u2019s piping, off the Constanta \/ Eforie shore, and it prints orange buoys. 163\/2026 prints floating piping, no buoy colour, and a 15 December cancel. Do not merge the two works boxes because both say protection works. Official ARN 146\/2026 remains the missing port-hand light buoy at 43-48.17 N 028-33.72 E, published 20 October, a point about 1.5 nautical miles north-west of Wednesday\u2019s box, not a piping finding. Official ARN 41\/2026 remains the starboard light buoy out of position at 43-47.92 N 028-34.68 E, on the north-west corner of the same inshore water. Those are buoyage defects. They are not 163\/2026. Do not brief the piping box as a replacement for a missing buoy.<\/p>\n
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. 163\/2026 names none of those hulls. A DPA who briefs Wednesday as \u201cWine Trader moved inshore\u201d has borrowed a 15 October fire position and has dropped the unnamed piping that is the whole of this notice.<\/p>\n
This is not yesterday afternoon\u2019s dedicated NAVAREA III 0168\/26, and it is not Wednesday afternoon\u2019s dedicated 0169\/26. 0168\/26 remains weekly group 44, the 3 November in-force list, cancel 092359 UTC 9 November. 0169\/26 is the Britoil Centurion oceanographic track in the Central Mediterranean. Neither number prints 43-46 N 028-35 E. Romanian coastal ARNs do not appear in 0168\/26\u2019s 2026 list. SafetyNet at 1200 UTC and 2359 UTC will not carry 163\/2026 merely because 0168\/26 is in force. Keep the Directorate file in the master\u2019s Black Sea coastal pack alongside the NAVAREA III wrapper, not inside it. This is also not NAVWARN 775\/26, 776\/26 or 777\/26. Those remain the two-hour For a master inbound to Constanta, Midia or Mangalia, or running recommended track 1 in from 43-47.59 N, 028-50.86 E, Wednesday afternoon is a lookout and CPA problem on the last inshore mile before it is a war-risk rewrite. The Directorate printed floating piping in a compact four-corner box west of the inner track-1 waypoint and printed a keep-clear that lives until 152159 UTC on 15 December. Floating hose and pontoons are a propeller, rudder and night-lookout problem. They are not AIS-reliable. They are not necessarily lit. They are not a port closure. The standing recommended-routes notice still tells ships to use 43-47.59 N, 028-50.86 E. A passage plan that only carried Tuesday\u2019s Khoryv landfall offset, or that treated the Mangalia shore as clean because 162\/2026 already cancelled, has not budgeted six weeks of inshore piping on the west side of track 1.<\/p>\n The reporting split is the operational content. Sightings of floating hose, an unlit pontoon, or a small works craft near 43-46.4 N, 028-35.8 E go to MRCC Constanta on VHF 16 or mrcc@rna.ro on the standing Directorate pattern, and to the company security officer. The English body of 163\/2026 does not reprint that mailbox; dedicated 158\/2026 still does. The standing mine-and-drifting-object recommendation still asks ships to report mine-like objects on VHF 16 to ntm@dhmfn.ro, mrcc@rna.ro and scomar@mai.gov.ro. 163\/2026 does not convert Wednesday\u2019s piping 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 152159 UTC 15 December. Log the ARN number, the 3 November publication, the four corners, the floating-piping line, the safe-distance keep-clear, the dangerous-to-navigation sentence, and the 152159 UTC 15 December cancel. Do not log Khoryv, Contship Jet, Wine Trader, a two-nautical-mile berth, orange buoys, or a 43-56 N works-box move that the notice does not print.<\/p>\n Charterers who still treat the Romanian coast as a quiet alternative to Ukrainian ports now have a six-week unnamed piping watch on the inshore side of recommended track 1, a still-open Khoryv file on a different plot, a still-open Contship Jet container watch farther south on the Bulgarian board, and a still-open Ahtopol tank on dedicated 784\/26. Deviation language that treats 163\/2026 as a Constanta or Mangalia shutdown has misread a self-cancelling works box. War-risk underwriters will ask for the four corners, the 15 December cancel, and a written statement that this notice is not Khoryv, not Contship Jet, and not cancelled 162\/2026. They will not be answered by September\u2019s ARN 123\/2026 orange-buoy box alone, and they will not be answered by Sunday\u2019s cancelled two-nautical-mile circle.<\/p>\n A pollution watch remains open because the notice is silent. Dedicated Khoryv files already told operators not to invent a slick from a wreck-move. Wednesday\u2019s 163\/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 names piping, not a tank. Masters inbound to Constanta, Midia or Mangalia should expect a four-corner keep-clear around floating hose, a lookout for small works craft, the missing port-hand buoy at 43-48.17 N still on 146\/2026, and the standing 112 \/ VHF 16 report if an object looks mine-like, not a completed harbour-works order. Do not treat the roadstead or the port as closed unless the Authority or the harbour master says so.<\/p>\n Keep the dedicated files on their own lines. ARN 158\/2026 remains the dedicated Khoryv wreck-move at 43-49.50 N, 028-53.37 E. NAVWARN 766\/26 remains the dedicated five-cable Khoryv keep-clear east of Shabla. NAVWARN 768\/26 remains the dedicated Contship Jet wreck and drifting containers southeast of Kaliakra. NAVWARN 784\/26 remains Tuesday morning\u2019s dedicated Ahtopol tank. NAVWARN 779\/26 remains Monday morning\u2019s dedicated Burgas four-container watch. ARN 123\/2026 remains the separate orange-buoy works box at 43-56 N through 31 January 2027. ARN 146\/2026 remains the missing port-hand buoy. ARN 162\/2026 remains cancelled at 021000 UTC 2 November. 775\/26, 776\/26 and 777\/26 remain the two-hour e-mail, the Galata diving box through 051430 UTC 5 November, and cutter 331 through 061600 UTC 6 November. Do not recast 4 November afternoon as a Khoryv inshore jump, as a Contship rewrite, as a revival of 162\/2026, or as a Romanian port closure.<\/p>\n Regulas Shipping will keep lining Wednesday afternoon\u2019s ARN 163\/2026 floating-piping box at 43-46.4 N, 028-35.8 E against Sunday\u2019s cancelled 162\/2026 drifting-object watch and against September\u2019s dedicated-period 123\/2026 orange-buoy works so operators can treat the Mangalia-approaches polygon as an unnamed coastal-works keep-clear through 15 December, not as a wreck move or a port closure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Romania\u2019s Maritime Hydrographic Directorate has published a new radio navigational warning that is now the working keep-clear on floating piping for coastal protection works south of the Constanta approaches. The official English text, printed on the Directorate\u2019s avize-radio page as ARN 163\/2026, states: BLACK SEA. ROMANIA. PROTECTION WORKS. Until 15 December 2026, floating piping and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","wpai_meta_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,18,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights","category-maritime-industry","category-maritime-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}sp@vtmis.bg<\/code> pre-entry report, the Galata diving box through 051430 UTC 5 November, and cutter 331 in Burgas Bay through 061600 UTC 6 November. Those are Varna and Burgas products. They do not belong on a Romanian 43-46 N piping watch.<\/p>\nOperational implications<\/h2>\n
What Operators Should Note<\/h2>\n
\n
sp@vtmis.bg<\/code> pre-entry report. 776\/26 remains the Galata diving box through 051430 UTC 5 November. 777\/26 remains cutter 331 through 061600 UTC 6 November. Sightings go to MRCC Constanta on VHF 16 or mrcc@rna.ro, and to the CSO. Watch a later ARN that moves 43-46.38 N 028-34.86 E, names a barge, marks a buoy, prints a numeric berth, or extends past 152159 UTC 15 December \u2014 not a Khoryv inshore jump and not a closed port.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n