Booms

Booms are floating barriers designed to perform one or more of the following functions:

• Oil containment and concentration: surrounding floating oil to prevent its spread over the water surface and increase its thickness to facilitate recovery

• Deflection: diverting the oil to a suitable collection point on the shoreline for subsequent removal, for example by vacuum trucks, pumps, or other recovery methods;

• Protection: diverting the oil away from economically important or biologically sensitive sites such as harbour entrances, power station cooling-water intakes, mariculture facilities or nature reserves.

Booms come in a variety of sizes, materials and designs in order to meet the demands of these differing situations and environments. They can range from small, inexpensive, lightweight models for manual deployment in harbours
to large, expensive and robust units for offshore use, which may require the use of reels, cranes and sizeable vessels to handle them.

Booms are available in a variety of lengths with couplings to allow sections to be combined to the desired overall length. Couplings also provide towing and anchoring points. In addition to reels, a variety of ancillary equipment such as towing bridles, air blowers and anchors may be required.