Paravane Exercise

November 2025 : Paravane Exercise

On Tuesday 25 November, FOST conducted a spill equipment deployment exercise on the Rhone, in the Tarascon/Beaucaire area.

The exercise aimed to test the use of a paravane to deploy a boom on the river.

As a reminder, a paravane is a hydrodynamic system that operates based the principle of deflection.

Paravanes can be used to deploy and hold in place different types of booms on water bodies that have a constant current and flow rate. They are composed of a series of vertical wings topped with a float to which a rudder with removable arms is attached.

Various organisations attended this exercise:

• Municipality of Beaucaire's HSE team
• BMPM (Marseille Naval Fire Battalion)
• Bouches-du-Rhône and Gard fire and rescue service (SDIS 13 & 30) Pollution Response Officiers
• CNR (management of activities on the River Rhône)
• VNF ( French waterways authority, on behalf of the Prefecture)
• FOST

The objective of this exercise was achieved ; the boom was successfully deployed using the paravane thanks to the current in the river. The exercise confirmed that this can be an effective containment method in inland waters. The demonstration was appreciated by the participants.