In Dunkirk, the sentinels of the sea

12 June 2025Photos and text: Guy Leroy29 images

01 / 29 · 12 June 2025Guy Leroy / Collectif DR

In Dunkirk, the volunteer rescuers of the Société nationale de secours en mer (SNSM) devote hours to training, checking equipment and raising funds for the station. This organization is essential to every rescue.

“Most people have no idea that we are volunteers,” explains Emmanuel Pelletier, 57, coxswain of the lifeboat Jean Bart at the Dunkirk station of the Société nationale de secours en mer (SNSM). They are sailors, workers, caregivers, students or retirees. They all have a life outside, but they all make themselves available at any time. This story offers an immersion in this station, which people often describe as a “second family”.

Each year, the Dunkirk SNSM volunteers carry out an average of 25 interventions, often in rough sea conditions. Behind these visible operations, preparation, equipment checks, ongoing training and drills at sea set the rhythm of life at the station.

The growing number of recreational boaters, migrant crossings and more violent storms due to climate change are making missions more frequent, more technical and riskier. Faced with these changes, the station has to make do with limited resources. To operate, it needs €80,000 a year, coming in particular from donations, state support, local events and services such as scattering ashes at sea.

The SNSM now has nearly 11,000 volunteers in France. In 2024, its stations carried out more than 9,200 interventions and assisted more than 27,000 people. In Dunkirk, some thirty of them keep this rescue chain going.

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