Every French-flagged pleasure boat over 2.5 metres carries a legal safety inventory, and that inventory is set by Division 240. It is not a suggestion from an insurer or a class society. It is a Ministry of the Sea rule, updated periodically, that tells you what must be on board depending on how far from shelter you plan to sail. Skippers who have not read it in a few years usually discover, at the wrong moment, that the requirements have shifted or that a piece of gear they trusted has quietly expired. Here is the working version.
What Division 240 actually covers
Division 240 is the French regulatory text that governs safety equipment for recreational vessels under 24 metres. It applies to any pleasure craft flying the French flag, whether privately owned or used for non-commercial training. Commercial charter and instruction fall under Division 241, which is a different animal and worth reading separately if you rent out your boat.
The text sets three things: the minimum equipment list by navigation zone, the technical standards that equipment must meet (CE marking, SOLAS approval where relevant, ISO norms for liferafts and lifejackets), and the documents you must have on board. It does not tell you how to use any of it. That part is on you.
The current version has been amended several times since its 2015 baseline, most notably to reflect changes in electronic distress signalling and to soften some of the paper chart requirements. Always work from the latest consolidated text on Légifrance, not from a printed guide that might be two revisions behind.
The four navigation zones
Division 240 defines four zones, measured from the nearest shelter (abri), not from the shore. A shelter is a place where the boat and crew can safely wait out bad weather. A rocky cove with no holding is not a shelter.
- Basique : up to 2 nautical miles from a shelter.
- Côtier : from 2 to 6 nautical miles.
- Semi-hauturier : from 6 to 60 nautical miles.
- Hauturier : beyond 60 nautical miles.
The zones stack. Hauturier equipment includes everything required for semi-hauturier, which includes côtier, which includes basique. You do not get to swap items between categories. If you plan a passage that crosses zones, you carry the gear for the furthest one you will reach, for the entire trip.
One practical point: the shelter is defined by conditions on the day. A harbour that dries at low water is not a shelter at low water. Skippers running the Channel or the Golfe de Gascogne routinely find that their "6 mile" coastal hop is technically semi-hauturier once you honestly assess where you could actually take refuge in a Force 6.
Basique and côtier: the everyday kit
The basique inventory is the floor. It is what a small day boat needs to leave the pontoon legally.
- One lifejacket per person on board, minimum 100 N for adults in basique, 150 N from côtier onwards. Children under 30 kg need a jacket sized for them.
- A means of evacuating water: bucket with lanyard, or fixed bilge pump depending on the boat.
- A tow line adapted to the boat.
- A mooring line and an anchor with chain or line adapted to the vessel.
- A waterproof torch.
- A sound signalling device (horn or whistle).
- The Réglement International pour Prévenir les Abordages en Mer (RIPAM), which is the French version of the COLREGs, plus a compliant navigation light setup if you sail at night.
Côtier adds the pieces that let you deal with an incident without immediate outside help:
- Three hand-held flares, in date. If you have never fired one, read how to use a distress flare safely before you need to.
- A compass, whether magnetic or electronic with battery backup.
- An updated chart of the area, paper or electronic. Electronic is now accepted provided the device is fixed or has independent power.
- A fire extinguisher adapted to the boat and, in the engine compartment, a suitable extinguishing system if it is a closed compartment.
- A first aid kit matched to the number of people on board.
- A knife accessible from the cockpit.
Most owners already carry more than this. The regulation is a minimum, not a target.
Semi-hauturier: where it gets serious
Cross the 6 mile line and the list changes shape. You are now expected to survive weather, communicate a distress and, if it comes to it, wait for a rescue that may be hours away.
- A fixed VHF with DSC (ASN in French). A handheld backup is strongly recommended and is required in certain configurations. If your setup has never been checked, our note on how to configure your VHF for security covers the MMSI, DSC pairing and antenna checks that get missed.
- A lifebuoy with an automatic light, plus a means of hoisting a person back on board. This ties directly to the MOB drills every crew should rehearse: read how to react in the event of a man overboard if it has been a while.
- Harnesses and jacklines for every crew member likely to be on deck.
- A manual bilge pump accessible with all hatches closed.
- A bathymetric line or echo sounder.
- A set of tidal predictions for the passage, in French waters where tides matter.
- A reserve of fresh water and appropriate fuel reserves for the planned passage.
- A storm anchor or drogue on sailing yachts.
DSC changes what a distress looks like. If you are still thinking of Mayday as "grab the mic and talk", the procedure has moved on: how to send a Mayday and use DSC distress on your VHF is worth the ten minutes.
Hauturier: full offshore inventory
Beyond 60 miles from a shelter, you are on your own for long enough that the equipment shifts from "handle an incident" to "sustain the crew and get located". This is the level where the regulation starts to look like a proper offshore inventory.
- A liferaft in date, ISO 9650 compliant, sized for the whole crew. Stowage matters as much as the raft itself. Our guide on choosing and servicing a liferaft covers the categorisation and the servicing intervals owners tend to postpone.
- A grab bag with the survival essentials, ready to leave with the raft.
- A 406 MHz distress beacon: EPIRB registered to the vessel, or in some configurations a PLB per crew member. The choice is not neutral. See EPIRB, PLB or AIS beacon for the practical difference between the three.
- Parachute distress rockets in addition to the hand-held flares, plus smoke signals.
- A means of receiving weather forecasts at sea: NAVTEX, SSB, satellite communicator or reliable data link.
- A medical kit sized for the extended distance from professional care.
- A radar reflector if the boat is not naturally detectable.
Nothing in Division 240 requires AIS, but sailing hauturier without a transponder in 2024 is a choice, not a saving. And if you are relying purely on visual watch offshore, brush up on the COLREGs decisions that actually matter when a converging vessel appears on the horizon at dusk.
Keeping it compliant
Owning the gear is half the job. Keeping it valid is the other half. The items that catch owners out at inspection or, worse, at sea:
- Flares have expiry dates, typically three years for hand-helds and parachute rockets. Expired flares do not count towards the inventory, even if they still fire.
- Liferafts need periodic servicing, usually every one to three years depending on the manufacturer and the type of container. A raft that has skipped a service is legally non-compliant regardless of its condition.
- EPIRBs and PLBs have battery replacement intervals set by the manufacturer. The registration also needs to be kept current with the vessel's owner and contact details.
- Lifejackets with automatic inflators have cartridge and bobbin lives. Inspect them annually and rearm any that have fired.
- Fire extinguishers need periodic checks, and the pressure gauge is not the whole story.
An affaires maritimes inspection is not the main reason to keep this list tight. The main reason is that the day you actually need any of it, you will not have time to discover that the flare is two years out of date or that the raft was last serviced by the previous owner. Build a simple maintenance calendar, note expiry dates, and treat the annual check like an engine service : boring, unglamorous, and the reason things work when they must.
If you already track engine hours and consumption through onboard telemetry, adding a safety-gear expiry log is a small extra habit. The Oria Box logs the boat's operational data automatically; a five-line note in the Oria app each spring, listing your flare dates, raft service and beacon battery, turns Division 240 from a memory test into a checklist. Which of your safety items expires next, and do you know the date without opening a locker?
