Queen Elizabeth II Quay

Queen Elizabeth II Quay has sometimes been the called the "third largest natural harbor in the world"— this is inaccurate in two respects: 1.)

The quay includes six numbered berths designed to accommodate either passenger or cargo ships, and has several warehouses and extensive outdoor storage space.

Repeated military invasions of Freetown during the 1991-2002 Sierra Leone Civil War resulted in significant damage to the quay's facilities in the late 1990s, including a crater within berth 5 which remained inoperable and under repair ten years later.

The port has never had adequate equipment for the loading and unloading of cargo, and has faced numerous other structural and organizational problems: on October 29 of 2007, for example, the port's then only forklift broke down after being filled with gasoline which had been diluted with water, causing a 48-hour total standstill in the movement of cargo containers, and Sierra Leonians have complained to the country's president about chronic corruption at the quay.

[4] As of 2009[update] the port's stevedoring facilities include two forklifts, one "super-reacher", four reach stackers, five German MAFI trucks (each with a carrying capacity of 50 tons), one tug master, one pilot cutter, and a fire engine.

On September 26 of 2009 the ro-ro vessel MV Oriental Hero, a Hong Kong-based cargo ship flying a Panamanian flag of convenience and carrying a cargo of trucks, trailers, and bagged cement collided with and damaged berth 1A and 2.