Marine Glossary

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fairway

Bowditch definition is:

n. l. The main thoroughfare of shipping in a harbor or channel. 2. The middle of a channel.

But there is much more to this concept.

This is a term which always appears with Navigation Rules related to "narrow channels." All narrow channel rules apply to fairways as well. A fairway can be a buoyed channel through otherwise open water, not necessarily constricted by any other boundaries. They are often marked by buoys, but they need not be prominently marked by buoys or dayshapes.

A prominent fairway route could be marked on a paper chart or RNC (see Chart No 1 Section M18) with no other signs on the water, but often an actual fairway might have on the chart only the bold dashed side boundaries but no caps at the end and no label at all. In many cases, these same lines are defining a dredged area, which may or may not be a fairway, though many likely are.

In some areas, a fairway crosses busy waters or runs along the edge of one. It takes special care to remember that the "narrow channel rules" of Rule 9 apply in these regions as well, even though the water may not look like a narrow channel at all.

This important term is used in Rule 9 (a to f), Rule 30e, Rule 34c, Rule 34e, and in the Radiotelephone Act, Section 26.03 (a)(4) and (e)(1) and (e)(2). Note that the term "fairway" as important as it is, is not defined in the Rules... but neither is "proper watch," which is also key to several Rules. "Close quarters" is another such crucial term left undefined except for the various court case documents that make up the working definitions.

The paper chart symbol (RNC) is a dashed line, bolder than other dashed lines. In ENC it is also dashed and slightly bolder, but the great beauty of ENC is the cursor pic tells us if this is a fairway or a dredged area or both. We cannot know that on many paper chart examples. Fairways are discussed in Section 2.11 of Introduction to Electronic Chart Navigation.

See the Lake Union and Union Bay area of Chart 18447 for a good example. Load US5WA13M to see this region on an ENC. This chart is in our training pack already. On ENC, dredged area and fairway are two separate objects, which can of course overlap.