Boating French: 60 Phrases for the Marina, Lock and VHF

I crossed to Cherbourg with about eight words of French and lost most of them at the fuel berth, where a man in oilskins asked me something three times before he gave up and pointed. That evening I started a notebook taped to the chart table. By the end of one season it held the phrases below, the ones that actually came up, marina after marina, lock after lock, from the Channel down to the Gulf of Lion.

You do not need to be fluent. You need about sixty phrases, said badly but said, because a French harbourmaster who hears you try will switch into helpful mode in a way that pointing at a phrasebook never triggers. Marina staff on the busier coasts often speak some English, but the lock keeper on the Canal du Bourgogne and the fisherman blocking the fuel pontoon at seven in the morning usually do not.

A word on pronunciation before the lists. French swallows the last consonant of most words, so "bonjour" is roughly "bon-zhoor" and the final R is soft. "Capitainerie" is "ka-pee-ten-ree". When in doubt, slow down rather than guess. And always, always open with bonjour. Skipping the greeting and going straight to your question reads as rude in a way that surprises a lot of British and American visitors, which I cover in more detail in our guide to french boating etiquette.

The Ten You Cannot Skip

Learn these before you cross. Everything else is a bonus.

Calling the Capitainerie

The harbourmaster's office is the capitainerie. On the French coast you call it on VHF channel 9, not channel 80 as in British marinas, and most ports monitor channel 9 during office hours. Distress, urgency and safety calls stay on channel 16, which the CROSS coastguard stations also monitor around the clock. If you raise nobody on the radio, phone the office or simply tie up on the visitors' pontoon (panne visiteurs) and walk in.

Mooring, Lines and the Med

On the Mediterranean coast you usually moor stern-to or bows-to a quay, picking up a lazy line (pendille) rather than dropping your own anchor. The vocabulary changes accordingly. Get your lines ready early and have fenders down both sides until you know which way you are going alongside.

Fuel, Water and the Chandler

The fuel berth (la station-service or le ponton carburant) often keeps short hours and may close at lunch from around 1200 to 1400, like much of provincial France. Diesel is gazole, petrol is essence (sans plomb for unleaded). If you are running low, ask before you commit to a long passage, because some smaller harbours only sell fuel in the morning.

Locks and the Canals

If you take the inland route across France, the lock keeper (l'eclusier) becomes the most important person in your day. Most locks on the Freycinet-gauge network run to a published timetable with a long lunch closure, and many shut for the day around 1900 in high season. Approach slowly, have your lines and crew ready, and a friendly greeting goes a long way with someone who handles a hundred boats a week.

On the VHF

Keep it short. The French use ICI for "this is" and a lot of skippers say "a vous" for "over", which is not strictly correct procedure but is what you will hear. Spell anything important with the phonetic alphabet, which is the same in French.

That is sixty, give or take the corrections. Copy them onto a card and tape it inside a locker by the companionway. The first time the office calls you back on channel 9 and you answer in even broken French, you will understand why the notebook was worth the effort. From there it is a short hop to handling a market, a restaurant and a chandler ashore, which I get into in the piece on provisioning a boat in France and the one on finding good harbour restaurants.