New marking vessel for Danube river fairway designation

The Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River in Bulgaria’s city of Rousse already has a new marking vessel and a cutter. Its main function would be to perform fairway designation to ensure seamless navigation by preventing seams from being jammed. The new ship will be named “Osam”.

So far, the Agency had only one "Vit" marking ship, 40 years old, in a technical malfunction, and the stretch to be navigated by flaoting navigational marks is about 230 km. On the bank, there are also signs, for which the Agency is responsible for.

The first task of the new “Osam” ship is to place signs in the most critical stretch with thresholds that extend over the island of Batin to the mouth of the Yantra River.

The ship was built with European funds at Varna Shipyard.

“Osam” has an overall length of 34 m with a beam of 9.5 m and a draft of 1.25 m. The vessel is able to sail with a speed of 23 km/h.