Marina service
Corleone Marina Balmain (formerly Balmain Marina)
About
Corleone Marina Balmain (formerly Balmain Marina) at a glance
Small marina at 1-3 Phoebe Street, Balmain with about 20 wet berths on a classic wooden wharf (up to ~12 m per 2024 guide; older guides cite berths to 75 ft), plus swing moorings and haul-out capability.
Service area: Sydney Harbour
- Marina type
- full-service marina
- Operator
- Corleone Marinas
- Region
- Sydney Harbour
- Water body
- Sydney Harbour
- Wet berths
- 20
- Maximum vessel
- 18 m
- Berth types
- permanent berthing, casual berthing, swing moorings
Facilities and services
- slipway
- repairs & maintenance
- pump-out
- power & water
- DIY slipping option
- twin-cradle slipway (to 60 ft)
- resident shipwright
- marine mechanic
- complimentary tender service
- insurance surveys
About Corleone Marina Balmain (formerly Balmain Marina)
Balmain's western foreshore still carries the bones of Sydney's working harbour, and the marina at 1-3 Phoebe Street is one of its survivors. Now operated by Corleone Marinas and long known as Balmain Marina, this is a deliberately small operation: around 20 wet berths on a classic timber wharf, a run of swing moorings taking boats to 18 metres, and a twin-cradle slipway that ranks among the last traditional slipping operations on Sydney Harbour. The site sits in a quiet residential pocket facing across the water towards Birkenhead Point, with ferry wharves, the old Mort's Dock precinct and Balmain's pub and cafe streets a short walk away. Timber boat owners, racing yacht crews and local families make up most of the clientele, and the resident shipwright and mechanic keep the yard busy with work that larger travelift marinas often turn away, including deep-keel timber classics and broad-beamed catamarans. The Corleone group took over the marina in recent years and also runs berthing at nearby Rozelle Bay, but the Phoebe Street site has resisted any temptation to modernise into a glossy berthage precinct; the appeal is precisely the old working-waterfront scale. Evening here is a selling point in itself - mooring clients get a complimentary tender service seven days a week and an uninterrupted western sunset over the harbour. For a boat owner wanting Sydney Harbour moorage without harbour-marina prices or pretension, it remains one of the peninsula's genuine institutions. The Phoebe Street frontage has hosted boatbuilding and slipping for generations, and the current wooden wharf keeps that lineage visible in a district where most of the old yards have become apartments.
Marina facilities
Berthing comprises roughly 20 wet berths on the fixed timber wharf, with recent guides putting the practical limit around 12 metres although older directories cite berths to 75 feet; power and water are available at the berths, and permanent and casual arrangements are both offered. The swing moorings sit close to shore and accommodate vessels up to 18 metres (60 feet), backed by a complimentary tender service running seven days a week, a genuine rarity on the harbour. The slipway is the engine room of the business: two cradles handle timber and fibreglass keel and power boats from deep-keel racing yachts to wide catamarans and fishing trawlers up to 60 feet, with DIY slipping options available for owners who want to do their own work - one of very few Sydney yards still offering that. The resident shipwright covers antifouling, boat detailing, hull, deck and topside repairs, insurance surveys and structural modifications, while the marine mechanic diagnoses and services outboards, inboards and large diesel ship engines. A pump-out facility serves berth and mooring holders. The office keeps 9am to 5pm hours seven days. There is no fuel wharf or chandlery on site, but refuelling and shopping are directly across the water at Birkenhead Point Marina, minutes away by tender. What the marina lacks in amenity blocks and clubrooms it makes up in trade skills: slipping, shipwright and mechanical work are available under one roof, seven days, at rates the operator pitches as competitive. Testimonials from long-term slipway clients, published by the operator, consistently single out the professionalism and advice of the yard crew, and the slipping schedule fills quickly in the spring antifouling season, so booking ahead is advisable.
Local sailing knowledge
By water, the marina lies on the Balmain peninsula's inner-harbour side, an easy run from the main shipping channel with no bars or bridges between it and the Heads; traffic is ferry wakes and weekend racers rather than swell. Tidal range is the standard Sydney two metres, depths alongside suit keeled yachts, and the moorings enjoy good shelter from everything except a hard westerly. Ashore, this is one of the best-provisioned boating locations in the country: Balmain's Darling Street cafe, pub and restaurant strip is a short walk, the CBD is around ten minutes by car, and Balmain ferry wharf connects to Circular Quay. Birkenhead Point, directly across the bay, has fuel, a marina, outlet shopping and supermarkets. The neighbourhood's maritime history is thick on the ground - Mort's Dock, the Colgate-Palmolive clock site, the old Adelaide Steamship wharves and Mort Bay Park are all within strolling distance, and the peninsula was boatbuilding country for a century before the marinas arrived. Cruising options fan out in every direction: upriver to Gladesville and Parramatta, across to Cockatoo Island for a picnic stop, or out the Heads for the coast. Locals use the moorings as a cheap alternative to eastern-suburbs berthing and the slipway as the default haul-out for wooden boat owners from all over the harbour. Watching the sunset from a mooring with a drink, as the operator's own clients like to point out, is the daily ritual that sells the place. Cockatoo Island, with its campground, convict docks and festival calendar, lies a short steam upriver and makes the natural first stop for anyone based at Phoebe Street.