Harbour

Dunkirk Commercial Port

4.2Dunkirk, FranceOpal Coast and Bay of Somme

Maximum length: 492 ft
Maximum draught: 16 ft

Third largest French seaport on the North Sea coast, in Hauts-de-France. Pleasure craft normally use the adjacent Dunkerque Marina and Yacht Club de la Mer du Nord rather than the commercial basins.

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Deep-water access via the avant-port, maximum draught up to 5 m in the pleasure channels. Commercial traffic priority, VHF 73 for Dunkerque Port Control on channel 73. Cross-Channel ferries to Dover operate from the western port. Pleasure craft must use the buoyed plaisance channel to avoid commercial shipping lanes.

Practical

Commercial port with container terminals, ferry terminal and cargo basins, where only the occasional superyacht lies among the commercial traffic. Water is available on the quayside, but there is no shore power, so a generator has to be delivered pierside. Yacht Club de la Mer du Nord at 0,1 NM and Dunkerque Marina at 0,3 NM offer berths, fuel, water and power for visiting yachts.

Ashore

Port museum Musee portuaire in a former tobacco warehouse, quai de la Citadelle, at around 1 km from the marina. Beach of Malo-les-Bains and its seafront villas at 1,5 km. Dunkerque town centre, belfry listed by UNESCO as part of the Belfries of Belgium and France, at 1,2 km.

History

Dunkerque grew as a fortified harbour under Vauban and became the base of corsair Jean Bart in the 17th century. The port was the site of Operation Dynamo in May and June 1940, when around 338,000 Allied troops were evacuated to Britain. The port was largely rebuilt after 1945 and extended westwards in the 1960s and 1970s.