Port Revel

The facility uses manned models at a 1:25 scale on a man-made lake designed to simulate natural conditions including harbours, canals, and open seas.

The facility was written about by John McPhee in an October, 1998 article for The Atlantic Monthly, later republished as Chapter Two in his book Uncommon Carriers (2006).

The centre's origin goes back to the fifties, when Port Revel's mother company, Sogreah, was studying bank erosion on the Suez Canal using model ships sailing on a scale model with a movable bed (i.e. granular material subjected to erosion by turbulent water movement).

At the end of the sixties this experience with free sailing model ships was used by Esso to anticipate the manoeuvring behaviour of the new, much larger, oil tankers.

Manned models are used for research (e.g. ship behaviour), engineering (e.g. port layout) and for training in shiphandling (e.g. maritime pilots, masters and officers).

Training on the scale models provides experience that could never be gained on real ships for the simple reason that neither ship-owners nor local authorities would allow such risks to be taken.

Scale models allow experimentation on ship behaviour to explore unknown fields beyond the limits of safety.

In an ideal world, shiphandling training would consist of three things: The 5 hectare lake is located in the lower Alps near Grenoble where the wind regime is very mild.