Navigation Warning (NAVAREA)

A NAVAREA navigation warning is a maritime safety message broadcast to the ships in one of the 21 NAVAREAs into which the world ocean is divided under the World-Wide Navigational Warning Service. Each NAVAREA has a coordinator state that gathers and issues long-range warnings about hazards beyond coastal range: drifting wrecks, AtoN failures, naval exercises, new dangers, and SAR operations. The warnings reach ships through SafetyNET on the Inmarsat or recognized mobile-satellite service and, in coastal range, through NAVTEX as coastal warnings. The bridge logs and plots them as part of maintaining the chart. NAVAREA warnings are one of the three tiers, NAVAREA, coastal, and local, in the WWNWS.