I live very close, I had no idea these had disappeared and reappeared, they’re really part of the town now. Kind of like punting in oxford.
One thing that’s not mentioned here is that the river is really shallow (like 1 foot deep in many places). So you often have to walk the boat. And the boats have to go below bridges that are also really low, so whoever is in the boat needs to completely lie down to go under the bridges. It is somewhat scary.
Yes, they have races in l'Isle sur la Sorgues now, and there's always a few of them crossing the town. Much less popular than kayaks and canoe (cause totally impossible to handle), but they're the only ones that can go below the bridges.
One thing that’s not mentioned here is that the river is really shallow (like 1 foot deep in many places). So you often have to walk the boat. And the boats have to go below bridges that are also really low, so whoever is in the boat needs to completely lie down to go under the bridges. It is somewhat scary.