South Bay Racers’ Missing Buoy Retrieved and Under Repair

Early last week we received an email from John Tennyson of the South Beach Yacht Club (SBYC) Race Committee alerting us to a missing buoy — the NAS1 buoy. The SBYC had received a Coast Guard notification that said (among other things), “ALAMEDA NAVAL AIR STATION CHANNEL ENTRANCE LIGHTED BELL BUOY 1 (LLNR 4745), MISSING.” They received the notice on March 20. When John contacted us on April 28, the buoy was apparently still missing. His hope was that we would know whom to contact or how to find more information, and be able to alert other sailors.

Well, we hunted long and hard to find notices, maps … any indication of what had happened to this buoy. Almost nada! We did find reference to it. In fact, at one point, after much deep delving, we found that same notification quoted above. But that was all. In the end, we called the Coast Guard. They didn’t answer, so we emailed them. Thankfully, a day later, they replied.

It seems the buoy has been found and recovered, sporting a hole in its hull. We’re told the buoy is now being repaired on Yerba Buena Island, but the ETA of its being back in place is “still a couple [of] months away.”

John Tennyson says the SBYC Race Committee is quite concerned about its absence. “The NAS1 buoy is a pretty important bit of equipment to South Bay sailors and racers and its status is important news to us. It doesn’t sound like what was happening in Santa Cruz where USCG wanted to remove a buoy, but we would sure like to see it returned!”

We’re told it will be returned, but we suggest that no one hold their breath during the wait. By the way, this particular buoy is also on the Coast Guard’s list of buoys that will be stripped of their sound signals.

For anyone who is wondering exactly where NAS1 is, our amazing racing editor Christine Weaver has sailed and raced in that area many times and was able to identify and highlight the buoy on a chart. See the red circle.

We all look forward to the return of missing buoy LLNR 4745, or for the locals, NAS1.