Marina service
Bellerive Yacht Club Marina
About
Bellerive Yacht Club Marina at a glance
Family club established 1926 at Kangaroo Bay, Bellerive, with a marina holding about 170 vessels (10m, 12m and 15m berths), a slipyard, crane and fuel jetty; a development application has been lodged to expand the marina to 270 berths.
Service area: Hobart / River Derwent
- Marina type
- yacht club marina
- Operator
- Bellerive Yacht Club
- Region
- Hobart / River Derwent
- Water body
- Kangaroo Bay
- Wet berths
- 170
- Maximum vessel
- 15 m
- Berth types
- casual berthing, permanent berthing
Facilities and services
- fuel
- slipway
- boat ramp
- power & water
- showers & laundry
- licensed club
- restaurant/cafe
- on-site crane
- two bars
- function and wedding facilities
- year-round racing program
- casual berthing subject to availability
About Bellerive Yacht Club Marina
Bellerive Yacht Club has occupied the shore of Kangaroo Bay on Hobart's eastern side of the Derwent since 1926, and over nearly a century it has grown from a small sailing fraternity into one of the state's largest clubs: more than a thousand members, assets north of $3.5 million and an annual turnover approaching $2 million. It describes itself as a family club and means it; partners and children are folded into the program, and the social calendar is as busy as the sailing one. The clubhouse, oriented north-west to catch the afternoon sun, looks straight across the marina and the bay toward kunanyi/Mount Wellington and the Hobart skyline, and houses two bars plus the Anchors Restaurant, with weddings, dinners and corporate functions a speciality. Sailing here is a year-round commitment: Wednesday-evening twilight races through summer, Saturday racing across the season, Sunday racing in winter, and the club's flagship event, the Crown Series regatta each February, ranks among the biggest regattas in Tasmania. The marina below holds about 170 vessels in 10, 12 and 15-metre pens and has recently been through a major upgrade, but demand on the Derwent far outstrips supply, so the club has lodged a development application to enlarge the basin to 270 berths. For a boat owner based anywhere near the eastern shore, Bellerive's combination of berth, slipyard, fuel jetty, crane and a licensed club upstairs is hard to match anywhere on the river. Generations of Hobart sailors have come through its junior and dinghy programs, and the membership now spans keelboat racers, cruising families and powerboat owners who treat the club as their waterfront headquarters on the eastern shore.
Marina facilities
The marina accommodates roughly 170 vessels in 10, 12 and 15-metre berths with power and water, offered on both permanent and casual terms through the club office, and the recently completed upgrade has renewed the pontoon infrastructure throughout the basin. On the working side, the club maintains its own slipyard with a crane for haul-outs, a combination that lets members antifoul, survey and repair without leaving the property; the boat ramp handles trailer craft, and a fuel jetty on site dispenses to members and visitors alike, a genuine convenience given that fuel berths on the Derwent are few and concentrated around the city wharves and Sandy Bay. Amenity-wise the club provides showers, toilets and laundry for berth holders and visiting crews, plus ample car parking adjacent to the piers. The licensed clubhouse above is the social infrastructure: two bars, the Anchors Restaurant for meals overlooking the bay, and function rooms that keep the place busy midweek. Casual visitors are accommodated when berths are free and should phone the office on (03) 6244 1353 ahead of arrival; reciprocal arrangements apply for members of other recognised clubs. The proposed expansion to 270 berths, currently before council as a development application, would materially change the supply equation on the eastern shore, where marina space is chronically tight, and the club has signalled that facility improvements are an ongoing program rather than a one-off. Berth pricing is handled direct by the office and is pitched, in the club's words, at competitive rates for members.
Local sailing knowledge
Kangaroo Bay is one of the most recognisable corners of the Derwent, sitting just inside Bellerive Bluff opposite the Hobart city waterfront, and the approach from sea is straightforward deep water with no bar, no bridge and no lock to negotiate; the only real cautions are the ferry lanes to the north and the moored boats that fringe the bay. Bellerive Bluff itself gives the marina meaningful shelter from the prevailing westerly and south-westerly weather that sweeps the river, and the bay is a long-favoured anchorage when the Derwent is kicking up elsewhere. Step ashore and Bellerive village is a genuine village: cafés, a bakery, pubs and small shops along the strip, with Blundstone Arena, the home of Tasmanian cricket, a short walk uphill, and Hobart's CBD ten minutes away by car over the Tasman Bridge or a pleasant run by tender. For cruising, the marina sits mid-way along the Derwent's useful cruising water: downstream are Battery Point, Sandy Bay and the entrance to Storm Bay for Bruny Island and the Channel, while upstream the river winds past MONA at Berriedale to New Norfolk on a flood tide. Summer Wednesday twilights are the cheapest entertainment on the river, watched from the club deck with a drink in hand. Visiting skippers should note that February's regatta week and the post-Sydney-Hobart period in early January both squeeze berth availability hard, so booking ahead in those windows is close to essential. Kangaroo Bay also holds a notable place in Sydney to Hobart lore, with the finish line lying just across the river off Battery Point, and Bellerive's deck gives a front-row view of yachts ghosting up the Derwent on a light morning.