A NAVIGATIONAL aid to help boaties negotiate the Hastings River entrance is here to stay.
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It comes after Roads and Maritime Services spent more than $50,000 installing new and improved navigation markers at the Hastings River entrance in October last year, as a trial, after consulting with the boating community.
The lights provide a guide to navigate the bar crossing.
Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams said the money was very well spent if it was about saving lives.
“Feedback from the local boating community has been positive so the lights will remain in place,” Mrs Williams said.
“The lights offer a guide to navigate through what can be a treacherous entrance from the ocean to the Hastings River.”
It is estimated there are about six incidents on average on the Hastings River bar each year.
The installation on the former front lead structure includes an upgraded rectangular shape – red with a white vertical stripe – at a height of about 10 metres.
Six projectors provide coloured sectors of green, white and red and replace the previous front and rear blue triangle leads.
Skippers must keep in the white sector area at all times and avoid straying into the green starboard or red port side.
Port Macquarie Marine Rescue unit commander Peter Ellison said the new navigational markers seemed to work quite well.
“It’s a bar that just needs to be treated with a great deal of respect,” he said.
Mr Ellison said he hoped the new navigational markers would make it simpler and safer for boaties to pick up the leads to come into Port Macquarie because the old markers were being blocked off by trees and were quite difficult to see, particularly during daylight hours.