Today, waterway safety is more critical than ever. To keep public access away from dangerous locations, to create a safety barrier to prevent the passage of canoes, dinghies, and other similar small craft, to transfer the casualties to the shore without the help of others, and many other applications make safety booms a necessity and a desirable solution. There are many companies around the world that are researching and developing safety booms that address these issues. ADOR Tech, with the help of its international partners, designs, manufactures, and supplies a full range of floating booms. Safety booms, a category of floating barriers, are the main topic of this article. For further information regarding floating booms, you may refer to the "Floating Booms: A Solution to Environmental Problems" article.
Below, you can access the headings of this article:
What is a safety boom?
Safety booms, as a type of floating booms, are produced to create a barrier in waterways (deployed upstream of hazards such as weirs and sluices) to marine safety by not only stopping drifting and disabled vessels but also by keeping public access away from the dangerous situation. They are ideal for low-head overflow-type dams.
Types of safety booms
It is important to note that safety booms come in different types. Each of these safety booms has different applications that are discussed in following.
1- Traffic Control Booms (TCB): A Traffic Control Boom acts as a safety barrier, preventing any craft from passing through. They are ideal for nearshore applications, waterways, marinas, private water bodies, and nature reserves.
2- Canoe Booms: Canoe Booms are used to prevent the passage of canoes, dinghies, and other similar small crafts. They allow the easy rapid assembly to customer lengths using ordinary tools and deliver long-term low maintenance whole life costs.
3- Rope Safety Booms: Rope safety booms are ideal for flood defense and navigation authorities to protect lives, vessels, and structures. They have been designed to meet a stringent set of conditions. Rope Safety booms comprise a series of guard piles spaced up to 10m apart with floats supporting two ropes providing constant freeboard and air draft. The design of the float allows up to two casualties to climb onto the float without ladders and the ropes allow casualties to get to shore unaided.
4- Chain Safety Booms: Chain Safety Booms are used with minimal maintenance to restrain and protect watercraft that may have lost power or control from entering dangerous areas, such as weirs or sluices. Chain Safety Booms allows for easy assembly using simple tools to fully customizable lengths. Due to the weight and size of the boom modules, there is no chance that the boom can be lifted by hand to permit passage underneath it.
5- Hemi Ball Booms: Hemi Ball Booms are ideal for nearshore applications, inland waterways, marinas, private water bodies, and nature reserves. They are commonly used for beach markers, small channel identifiers, and other uses where a floating line of demarcation is required. The hidden fixing system provides a secure attachment to the wire, which allows for a variable pitch or spacing meeting client requirements. The floats of the Hemi Ball Booms are easy to handle and are added to the wire rope using simple hand tools.
6-Recreation Booms: Recreation Booms have a dual function. They are used as a demarcation of recreational areas to deter marine traffic and stop jellyfish from entering at the same time. Recreation Booms are suitable for short- to long-term installations in combination with periodic net cleaning to remove marine growth. The frequency of cleaning depends on the installation environment.
For full details (technical specifications, images, catalog, etc.) of safety booms, please refer to the safety booms page.
Applications of safety booms
Safety Booms have different applications and are used in different waterways (waterways, marinas, private water bodies, nature reserves, etc.). Below are the general applications of safety booms:
1- Create a safety barrier to prevent even the smallest of craft from passing.
2- Ideal for flood defenses and navigation authorities to protect lives, vessels, and structures.
3- Ideal for beach markers, small channel identifiers, and other uses where a floating line of demarcation is required.
4- Use as a demarcation of recreational areas to deter marine traffic and stop jellyfish from entering at the same time.
Conclusion
Safety booms are increasingly used to reduce damages to people, structures, and offshores in high-risk water areas. Many companies are researching and developing in this field. As you read in this article, there are different types of safety booms, each of which has its uses.
ADOR Tech as the Bolina Booms representatives in Canada offers a full range of Floating Booms Products and services. For more information, please contact us.