Classifications

• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63C—SKATES; SKIS; ROLLER SKATES; DESIGN OR LAYOUT OF COURTS, RINKS OR THE LIKE
  • A63C19/00—Design or layout of playing courts, rinks, bowling greens or areas for water-skiing; Covers therefor
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63C—SKATES; SKIS; ROLLER SKATES; DESIGN OR LAYOUT OF COURTS, RINKS OR THE LIKE
  • A63C19/00—Design or layout of playing courts, rinks, bowling greens or areas for water-skiing; Covers therefor
  • A63C19/10—Ice-skating or roller-skating rinks; Slopes or trails for skiing, ski-jumping or tobogganing
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63G—MERRY-GO-ROUNDS; SWINGS; ROCKING-HORSES; CHUTES; SWITCHBACKS; SIMILAR DEVICES FOR PUBLIC AMUSEMENT
  • A63G3/00—Water roundabouts, e.g. freely floating
• • E—FIXED CONSTRUCTIONS
  • E02—HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING; FOUNDATIONS; SOIL SHIFTING
  • E02B—HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING
  • E02B3/00—Engineering works in connection with control or use of streams, rivers, coasts, or other marine sites; Sealings or joints for engineering works in general
  • E02B3/04—Structures or apparatus for, or methods of, protecting banks, coasts, or harbours
  • E02B3/12—Revetment of banks, dams, watercourses, or the like, e.g. the sea-floor

Definitions

• the invention relates to aquatic activities and sports, such as canoeing and kayaking, for which rivers are used where nautical stadiums are arranged to allow the training of practitioners and the running of competitions. 0 PRIOR ART
• Several types of aquatic routes are used for this purpose. 5
• the first type is made up of natural rivers which provide a privileged setting for practitioners and which require very little development, such as beacons suspended above the river to entirely schematize a determined route in the riverbed. this first.
• a second type of aquatic route is offered by pseudo-natural routes, which are river layouts using natural or concrete riprap.
• the river bed 5 is modified by the creation of artificial volumes by means of concrete masses installed in the river bed.
• a third type of aquatic route consists of artificial rivers obtained, for example 0, by diverting part of the flow of a river in an artificial channel or by pumping. These types of aquatic routes offer, for a specific river, only one flow of water from the river, determined and irremovable.
• the object of the invention is to develop a nautical course avoiding the aforementioned drawbacks and which may offer the possibility of changing the course of the flow of the river, so as to diversify the possible courses to practice on this river, while avoiding modifying the River bed.
• a first main object of the invention is a method for developing a nautical course in white water, intended for nautical activities, and consisting in modifying the river bed, which must be able to be put out of water, creating artificial volumes in the riverbed. According to the invention, it consists in proceeding according to the following steps:
• An improvement of this process consists in connecting together several vertical elements by a connecting piece to secure them and materialize larger artificial volumes.
• the second main object of the invention is a device for the development of an aquatic course in white water, in particular for water sports by modification of the bed of a river comprising:
• the bases which may be made of concrete are preferably provided with holes on the upper surface of the base and the elements each have a rod for fixing them in the holes.
• the holes are through and vertical with respect to the bases.
• the pedestals each have a few feet so that these pedestals are raised relative to the river bed to cause circulation around and through The pedestals in order to clean the holes.
• the upper part of certain elements may consist of a polyethylene envelope molded around the rod which extends over the entire height of the element, or of a vertical cylinder at the base of which the lower rod is threaded. by means of a concrete sleeve.
• a preferred embodiment of the invention provides that the elements each consist of a vertical cylinder itself constituting the upper part at the base of which is fixed the lower rod by means of a concrete sleeve.
• such cylinders are completed by making handling orifices in the wall of each of them and also allowing the water from the river to enter the cylinder when the river is put back in water and to evacuate from the cylinder when putting the water out of the river.
• each vertical element can be completed with a round cover provided with at least one hole.
• the cylinders and covers can be either polyvinyl chloride or polyethylene.
• the holes of the bases are covered with a sheath, preferably metallic.
• the sheath has grooves on its internal surface.
• the rods have grooves longi tudi na Les.
• An improvement of the invention consists in that the upper parts of certain elements have grooves to accommodate inter-ediate boards thus placed between two elements and thus increase the artificial volumes created by the elements.
• FIG. 1 in section, a first production of an element and a base of the device according to the invention
• the first main part of the device according to the invention consists in creating a series of bases 1, preferably made of concrete, and intended to be placed on the raft of the river bed, that is to say - say at the bottom of the latter.
• the main characteristic of these bases 1 is that elements 10 can be attached thereto which must constitute artificial volumes.
• the bases 1 each have a series of holes 2, for example, vertical and through, on the upper surface 3 of the base 1 in question.
• the fact that these holes 2 are through avoids the suction cup effect When an object is inserted or removed from these holes 2.
• They are preferably reinforced with a sheath which may for example be metallic 4 to increase their resistance. to wear and ensure the stability of the artificial art volumes created in the river.
• the second essential element of the device according to the invention consists of a Lot of elements 10, for example, vertical, which are intended to constitute an artificial volume in the river bed and to be able to divert the flow of water. of the latter.
• each element has at its lower part a fixing rod 11, the shape of which corresponds to the internal diameter of the sheath 4. It is specified in this regard that, not only the shape complementary to the interior shape of the sheath 4 (a cylindrical tube if the sheath 4 is cylindrical) can be used, but also all the inscribed shapes can be used. It is thus envisaged to use cylindrical fixing rods 11 in sleeves 4 whose internal shape is circular in which is inscribed the external surface of the rods. In a first embodiment, and to facilitate handling of this vertical element 10, this lower rod 11 can advantageously be produced in the form of a hollow metallic profile. It is fixed to an upper part 12 of the vertical element 10 which is bulky.
• the attachment of the lower rod 11 to the voluminous upper part 12 can advantageously be done using any connecting concrete constituting a fixing sleeve 13. It is thus understood that it is possible, not only to equip any base 1 with one or more vertical elements 10 to constitute an artificial obstacle in Le Lit de La Rivière, but that it is also possible to place this artificial obstacle at a desired location by placing the base 1 at the corresponding location on the bottom of the river.
• Figure 2 shows four vertical elements 10 placed next to each other. Indeed, provision is preferably made for the spacing of the holes 2 of the bases 1 to correspond to the diameter or to the width of the vertical elements 10. In this way, the latter, by being placed adjacent, can play the role of a dike opposite the river water.
• Figure 3 shows a top view of a possible embodiment of an obstacle shown in Figure 2.
• edge 20 of the river we see that the installation of one or more pedestals on the side of the bed , near this edge 20 makes it possible to build a projection 21 consisting of eight vertical elements 10 placed so as to obtain the desired shape. This creates a diversion of the flow of the river, that is to say an artificial turning point.
• the embodiment of Figure 3 shows that the holes 4 are staggered relative to the edges 20 of the riverbed.
• the bases can be arranged anyhow on the bottom of the river, just as the location of the holes 2 in these bases 1 can be provided in any geometry. It is nonetheless preferable that their position and spacing make it possible to constitute compact volumes. It is also understood that if one or more bases 1 are placed in the middle of the river, it is possible to create, not only a projection of the edge 20 of the river, but an artificial island in the middle of the bed of the latter.
• the invention preferably applies to rivers which can be at least partially put out of water, that is to say which can be largely drained. Once the vertical elements 10 have been laid, the river can be put back into water.
• the handling holes 14 then allow the vertical elements 10 to remain in the bases 1 and not to float. In fact, these fixing holes 14 allow the water to gradually enter into each of the vertical elements.
• the realization of the lower rods 11 by means of hollow profiles allows a possible circulation of water from the interior of the vertical elements 10 below the bases 1, if the holes 2 do not 1 0
• a first preferential embodiment of the upper part 12 of the vertical elements 10 is to use relatively large cylinders. We are thinking in particular of PVC drainage pipes, that is to say polyvinyl chloride or polyethylene.
• These vertical elements 10 are advantageously supplemented each with a round cover 15 placed at the top 16 of a vertical element 10.
• a cover mainly makes it possible to prevent the users of the aquatic course from getting caught in an ambe or an arm in one of the vertical elements 10. It is preferably provided at least one hole 17 passing through each of the covers 16, to allow air to escape, during the progressive filling 25 of the interior of the vertical elements 10 during the re-filling of River.
• ÎL is advantageous to have a connecting piece such as a multiple cap 18 made up of 30 individual round covers secured to each other.
• a multiple cap 18 makes it possible to stiffen the structure created by several vertical adjoining elements 10.
• the single or multiple covers can also be made of the same material as the upper part 12 of the vertical elements 10, in this case PVC or polyethylene.
• the weight of such a vertical element can then be around sixty ki lograms for a size of the order of one meter fifty to two meters.
• Such vertical elements 10 can withstand a difference in water level on either side of the vertical element equal to one meter. It is therefore understandable that it is possible to constitute rapid local currents and diversions of the flow of the river to simulate obstacles and situations of high difficulty on an aquatic course, such as rapids.
• this preferred embodiment of the invention provides that the lower rod 11 of the vertical elements 10 is a cylindrical rod and that the corresponding holes 2 are also. This is only an embodiment, these two elements being able to have different but corresponding shapes.
• the section of the vertical elements 10 may not be cylindrical, but square or of a shape more or less suitable for the configuration of the obstacle that it is desired to create. They can, in particular, have the complementary shape of the bank of the river opposite the place where they are placed to allow an obstacle to be in intimate contact with it and thus prevent the flow from skirting the bank . 1 2
• a second preferred embodiment of the elements consists mainly of molding a synthetic material, such as polyethylene, around a large rod 25 extending over the entire height of the element.
• the rod 25 is shown with longitudinal grooves 28. This can facilitate the introduction of the rods 25 into the holes, or the sheath of the holes, When there is a little soil or sand inside of these. This ease of assembly can also be obtained by making grooves on the internal surface of the sleeves placed in the holes.
• lower grooves 26 may be provided at the bottom of the polyethylene envelope 23. It is thus possible to arrange beads 27 in the upper part of these lower grooves 26 to constitute grips.
• intermediaries 30 can have different heights so as to constitute either a complete obstacle vis-à-vis a boat, or a kind of weir to cause a rapid.
• the method and the device according to the invention make it possible to have evolving furniture which can be placed not only in running water, but in a simple body of water.
• Such a whitewater stadium using this type of obstacle offers a whole range of possibilities for variations in flow favorable to users.
• This type of equipment makes it possible to overcome certain drawbacks that the bed of a river has at a particular location by occasionally making a passage too difficult for users. Conversely, it is thus possible to create artificial difficulties in the bed of a river which usually does not present great difficulties for experienced users.
• the obstacles are movable, thus making it possible to vary the currents and the movements of water from the same river to the same place.
• the elements of the device can be easily standardized.
• the height of the vertical elements 10 can be very variable, depending on the level of the river water or the type of obstacle that one wishes to create.
• the aquatic routes thus created can possibly be accessible to practitioners of all levels, when they are associated with variations in the flow of the river.
• the invention makes it possible to remove all the elements from the river after their use, so as to restore this river with its initial natural bed. But it must be clarified to conclude that the invention is particularly well suited to artificial river arms which have been constructed beforehand, for example as a by-pass of any arrangement installed on or at the edge of the river, such as a barrage.

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• 1991
  • 1991-01-31 FR FR9101105A patent/FR2672321B1/fr not_active Expired - Lifetime
• 1992
  • 1992-01-30 DE DE69216076T patent/DE69216076T2/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1992-01-30 ES ES92905318T patent/ES2097904T3/es not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1992-01-30 WO PCT/FR1992/000082 patent/WO1992014001A1/fr active IP Right Grant
  • 1992-01-30 AU AU12064/92A patent/AU1206492A/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1992-01-30 EP EP92905318A patent/EP0569499B1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
• 1993
  • 1993-09-13 US US08/094,112 patent/US5443326A/en not_active Expired - Lifetime

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