These boats are used for a sport called "joutes" .
The game is simple, one man is standing on the higher part of what looks like a scale with a lance and a sort of shield and, you have 2 teams facing, one in blue the other in red, when they are crossing they have to push with their lance on the shield of the adversarie to make him fall in the water.
This is a very popular game in Languedoc, and every village has its team, there are a lot of competition during the summer.
