There is a moment, the first evening you moor stern-to on a Provence quay, when you realise you cannot actually get off the boat. The transom sits a metre or more off the wall, the gap below is dark water, and the only way ashore is to jump, climb or rig something to walk across. That something is a passerelle, and once you have one you wonder how you ever cruised the Mediterranean without it. Here is everything I worked out about choosing and using one.
What a passerelle actually is
Passerelle is simply the French word for footbridge, and that is exactly what it does: it bridges the gap between your transom and the quay so you can walk ashore. The English-speaking world also calls it a gangway or a gangplank, though strictly a gangplank is a plank between two boats and a gangway is the shore access. On a stern-to berth they all mean the same thing in practice.
It only matters because the Mediterranean berths you stern-to. Up north you step off onto a finger pontoon at deck level and never think about it. In Provence the bow is held off the quay by a lazy line, the stern is hauled towards the wall on warps, and you deliberately leave a gap so the transom does not grind on the stone. That gap is what the passerelle spans.
The gap, and why you leave it
New arrivals make the mistake of trying to get the transom right up against the quay so they can step straight off. Do not. The fendering you have rigged, which I have covered in the guide to fenders and fender boards for Med mooring, keeps the hull off the wall, and the swell or a passing wash will surge the boat back and forth all night. A transom pressed against stone is a transom getting damaged.
So you leave a deliberate gap, usually half a metre to a metre and a half depending on the swell and how much warp you let out, and you bridge it with the passerelle. The passerelle has to reach across that gap with something to spare, which is the first thing that decides its length.
Lengths and types
Passerelles range from around 2 metres for a small boat on a calm inner quay up to 3.5 metres for a bigger yacht that needs to sit well off the wall, and superyacht systems reach far beyond that. For a typical 32 to 42 foot cruising boat, a 2.5 to 3 metre passerelle is the right call: long enough to reach a real-world gap with the boat surging, short enough to stow.
The types break down like this.
- Manual plank passerelle. A simple board, often teak or aluminium, that you lift into place by hand and lash to the pushpit. Cheapest, lightest, and entirely adequate for a cruising boat. This is what most of us use.
- Telescopic passerelle. Extends and retracts, so it stows shorter than its working length. Comes in single and double telescopic versions, the double stowing shortest. Convenient on a boat with limited deck space.
- Hydraulic or electric passerelle. Deploys at the touch of a button and often rotates. Superb and superbly expensive, and aimed at large motor yachts rather than cruisers.
Carbon-fibre versions exist across all these types and are gorgeous and light, but the price reflects it: carbon passerelles run anywhere from around 2,000 to 20,000 pounds depending on length and mechanism. A plain aluminium or teak plank for a cruising boat is a tiny fraction of that, and for most of us it is all the passerelle we will ever need.
Rigging it so it stays put
A passerelle that shifts as you step on it is a swim waiting to happen. The setup that works is the same every time.
- The inboard end sits on the pushpit or on a dedicated bracket, free to pivot up and down as the boat surges. It must not be fixed rigid, or the movement will load it and the quay end will jump off.
- The outboard end rests on the quay with an overlap, never balanced on the very edge. Wheels or a roller foot let it slide as the boat moves rather than catching.
- A lifting line from the boom end or a davit holds the outboard end up clear of the water so you can land it on the quay and lift it off, and so a surge does not drag it into the gap.
The whole thing has to tolerate the boat moving, because the boat will move. A passerelle lashed rigid at both ends snaps or jumps off the first time a ferry wash rolls through the harbour.
The bits that make it civilised
A bare plank gets you ashore, but a few additions turn it from a hazard into a pleasure.
- A handrail or a single guideline rigged alongside, because the first stretch over open water in the dark, after dinner ashore, is exactly when you want something to hold.
- A non-slip surface. Teak slats or a grip strip stop the morning slither when the plank is wet with dew.
- A removable wheel set or roller at the quay end, so the foot slides instead of catching as the boat ranges back and forth.
- A passerelle light, even a small solar one, so you and your guests can see the gap at night.
Etiquette on a crowded quay
The passerelle sticks out behind your transom into the shared space of the quay, so there is a courtesy to it. Lift it clear of the walkway when you are aboard for the night if it juts across the path, and never let it foul a neighbour's lines or block their own gangway. On a packed August quay in Saint-Tropez, the difference between a welcome neighbour and an irritating one is often nothing more than a tidily managed passerelle.
Stowing it on a small boat
The objection I hear most from cruisers is that a passerelle is one more long awkward thing to find space for on a boat already full of long awkward things. It is a fair point, and the answer is to think about stowage before you buy.
A plank passerelle stows neatly along the side deck, lashed to the guardrail stanchions outboard of the shrouds, where it is out of the way and instantly to hand when you arrive at a berth. A 2.8 metre plank lives there comfortably on most 35-foot-plus boats. If your side deck is too cluttered, a telescopic passerelle that collapses to two-thirds of its working length is the answer, and the double-telescopic versions stow shortest of all.
Some boats carry it on the coachroof or strapped to the pushpit, but the side deck keeps it lowest and least in the way of the boom and the running rigging. Wherever it lives, lash it so it cannot work loose on passage, because a passerelle that comes adrift offshore is heavy enough to do damage and long enough to go over the side.
The lifting tackle stows with it: a light line and a small block that you rig to the backstay or boom end on arrival. Keep the whole kit together in one place so that rigging the passerelle when you reach the quay is a two-minute job, not a hunt through three lockers while your crew holds the boat off the wall.
What I carry
A 2.8 metre aluminium plank passerelle with teak-strip treads, a lifting line to the backstay, a small roller foot for the quay end, and a single guideline I rig when the gap is wide or the night is dark. It cost a fraction of the carbon versions, stows along the side deck, and gets us ashore dry-footed every evening of a Provence cruise.
The passerelle is the last piece of the stern-to puzzle. The lazy line holds the bow, the fenders and fender board protect the hull, and the passerelle gets you and your dinner guests across the gap. Bring all three to the Mediterranean and stern-to mooring stops being intimidating and becomes one of the real pleasures of cruising France: tied to a quay in the middle of a harbour town, walking ashore for the evening over a plank you rigged yourself.
