Main Port of Naxos Island

Over the last years, Naxos Island shows an increasing touristic development and, at the same time, it produces significant agricultural and farming products, as well as raw materials like marble, emery etc. The main port serves as a gateway of transport goods and passengers while it plays another important role in Southern Aegean as well. Due to their central location, in Cyclades Island Complex, the port facilities of Naxos act as an intersection of smaller or larger growth axes that connect mainland Greece to either smaller Ιslands like Amorgos and Koufonisia or bigger ones like Crete.

The existing facilities are not considered adequate to serve maritime transport of both passengers and goods, as mentioned before, mostly because they present the common problems of port terminals in Greek Ιslands. These problems are usually the lack of land area to cover all activities and poor connection with the local road network.

Taking all the above into account, the Region of Southern Aegean Islands decided the upgrading of Naxos port. In 2001, it contracted the consulting partnership offices led by DENCO SA the study of expanding the existing facilities, in order to update the provided services. The consultant engineer Albert Paul Yamin and CNWAY served as the main subcontractor of the consortium for the design of the marine works. The study was successfully completed in 2005.

Project facts:

• Construction cost: 23,236,850 €
• 470m of new quay walls, as an expansion of the existing pier, and 9,880 m2 of additional land area in order to serve ferries, a cruise ship, day-trip boats, catamarans, a Greek Navy ship etc.
• A new jetty of 110m long, and 2,110m2 new land area, in the southern part of the basin, for side-by-side berthing of bulk cargo vessels
• Widening of the access road
• Extension of existing North and South breakwaters by 300m και 72m respectively, so as to protect the basin from southern and southern-west winds.
The final capacity of the port facilities is:
o One (1) ferry up to 150m long
o Three (3) ferries up to 120m long
o One (1) cruise ship up to 160m long
o Two (2) day-trip boats or small passenger boats up to 70m long
o One (1) hydrofoil boat up to 70m long
o One (1) Greek Navy ship
o One (1) bulk cargo vessel up to 70m long