Buoy Reference Library

Navigational buoys have been used in the United States since 1767 to warn mariners of impending dangers. It is rather odd, therefore, that some 200 years later there is no collection of material in one place that might shed some light upon buoy technology. Undoubtedly, the state-of-the-art is much more sophisticated, and it is the intention of this paper to present a buoy reference library. The library consists of all known books and unclassified papers that were possible to obtain in a four-week period. The subjects of both fixed and floating breakwaters were included in the searches for written material, but not in as much detail as buoys. Along with this reference material, a list of buoy manufacturers is included. The amount of papers and books written will multiply, but for the present, this is the only known working buoy reference library in existence. The subject is broken down into seven categories alphabetically filed. These are 1 mooring systems, 2 power sources, 3 development and design, 4 applications and uses, 5 instrumentation, math and computer models, 6 characteristics, and 7 miscellaneous. Two additional categories were made for fixed and floating breakwaters.