Viru Harbour (SBVIU)

The port is currently closed for commercial operations. Information for the port is retained should the port reopen. Logs are the principal export.

Tropical.

Viru Harbour is situated on the W coast of New Georgia Island.

Largest vessel handled: LOA 130m, draught 9.9m, 10,027DWT.

Approx 12 vessels handle 70,000t of logs annually.

Good sheltered anchorage for vessels up to 130m long can be found inside the port. Anchorage in depths of 18.0-22.0m, mud, may be obtained NE of the village of Tetemara on the W side of the channel, but no where is it possible to obtain more than 185m swinging room.

Anchorage and harbour entrance are deep. Beacons erected along the coast to the anchorage. The harbour entrance, flanked by vertical cliffs between 45 and 60m high, is 278m wide but the navigable channel, which is deep, is contracted to approx 130m by the fringing reefs on either side. Directions for entering harbour: The alignment (009.5°) of a pair of beacons (black and white triangles), situated on the shore reef 0.25nm within the entrance, leads in mid channel between the reefs on either side, passing: W of 2 beacons (black and white diamond topmark) marking the edge of the reef, which can usually be distinguished, on the E side, and E of a beacon (red and white diamond topmark) marking the edge of the reef, on which the sea always breaks, on the W side. Then the track leads ENE and then NNE to the anchorage, rounding a beacon (red and white) marking the edge of the shore reef on the NW side of the channel at a distance of approx 70m.

BA 1766. Admiralty Pilot NP60.

1025.

Not compulsory.

Range 1.21m.

Prevailing winds: Variable.

Radio: Honiara Radio, 500, 2182 and 6213kHz. VHF: Ch 16.

Clearance to be effected at Gizo.