Marina service
Laurieton United Services Club Visitor Wharf
About
Laurieton United Services Club Visitor Wharf at a glance
Visiting yachts may tie up free of charge for up to 5 days at the LUSC wharf on the Camden Haven River, built with volunteer labour from the former Camden Haven Yacht Club; shower facilities available at the adjacent club. Laurieton shopping centre is two blocks away.
Service area: North Coast
- Marina type
- commercial club
- Operator
- Laurieton United Servicemen's Club
- Region
- North Coast
- Water body
- Camden Haven River
- Berth types
- casual berthing
Facilities and services
- licensed club
- restaurant/cafe
- showers & laundry
- free berthing up to 5 days
- club bistro & bars
- shower key deposit
- nearby commercial moorings (Dunbogan Boatshed)
- Marine Rescue base
About Laurieton United Services Club Visitor Wharf
The visitor wharf at Laurieton is a small piece of cruising-coast philanthropy that has quietly served yachts for four decades. In the early 1980s a handful of sailors formed the Camden Haven Yacht Club to put their river on the coastal cruising map, and in partnership with the Laurieton United Servicemen's Club they built a wharf for visiting boats, largely with volunteer labour. When that original structure collapsed, the LUSC rebuilt it bigger with state and local government assistance, and the yacht club tipped in its accumulated funds before winding itself up in the face of public liability premiums it could not pay. The wharf remains, attached to one of the North Coast's big RSL-style clubs on the Camden Haven River at Laurieton, with North Haven across the water and the hulk of North Brother mountain rising behind the town. The deal it offers cruising sailors is close to unique on the NSW coast: tie up free of charge for up to five days, walk two blocks to a proper shopping centre, and use the club's showers, bars and bistro as a welcome shore break. A steady through-flow of yachts heading north and south each season is exactly what those original volunteers pictured, and the wharf is routinely full in the migration months. The arrangement has outlasted the yacht club that created it, which says something about the LUSC's commitment to the river trade; coastal cruising guides list Laurieton as a near-obligatory stop, and club staff are used to salty visitors fronting reception for a shower key.
Marina facilities
Berthing is alongside the club's wharf on the river, free for stays of up to five days, and fender boards are advised; locals call them Crowdy Boards, as the same boards are needed when mooring against the piles in Crowdy Head's small harbour to the south. If the wharf is full, visiting vessels anchor opposite the club, keeping a clear channel between themselves and the western bank, and holding in the river is good though the tide runs hard. Showers and toilets are inside the adjacent club: a key is issued at reception against a returnable deposit, which also gets you into a full licensed club with bars, a bistro and live entertainment. There is no fuel, power or water on the wharf itself and no pump-out; for diesel, crews generally arrange jerry runs from the service stations in Laurieton or head to the Dunbogan Boatshed upriver, where commercial swing moorings can also be hired for longer stays. No chandlery exists in town, so spares come with you, but the Laurieton shopping centre two blocks away covers groceries, pharmacy, bakery and a pub, and North Haven has further supplies across the bridge. A signposted submarine cable crosses the river upstream near the swimming pool, so anchoring is prohibited in that reach. Marine Rescue at Laurieton, the old Camden Haven Sea Rescue Squad, keeps a 24-hour watch on VHF channel 16 and 27MHz channel 88 and is the first call for local advice. Alan Lucas's guide Cruising the NSW Coast, recommended by the coastal cruising club that monitors the port, details the wharf, the leads and the river in full, and remains the standard reference carried aboard most visiting yachts. Club membership formalities are minimal for genuine visitors, who sign in under standard NSW club rules.
Local sailing knowledge
Camden Haven is a barred river entrance, but one of the friendlier ones on the North Coast: Camden Head and Perpendicular Point screen the prevailing southerly swell, and crossing on the last of a rising tide in settled weather is usually uneventful. Two hazards set up the approach. Mermaid Reef lies north of Crowdy Head and can be passed inside or outside but never over, and Telegraph Rock, awash and often invisible in calm weather, sits a mile off Perpendicular Point where the paddle steamer Telegraph found it in 1867; give it a wide berth to seaward. When easterly or north-east seas are running, the bar is unsafe at any tide, and the standing advice is to call Marine Rescue Laurieton for a condition report before arrival. Inside, the river is tidal with a brisk run, so allow generous swinging room at anchor as boats lie differently to wind and tide. The town itself is built for provisioning stops, and the Dooragan National Park walk up North Brother rewards a morning ashore with a hang-glider-ramp view over the whole estuary. Cruising legs from here are easy: Crowdy Head is a few hours south, Port Macquarie and the Hastings River a short day north, and Trial Bay's big anchorage a comfortable hop beyond that. Summer nor'easters freshen on the river by early afternoon, so time bar crossings for the morning. North Haven's cafes and the bridge walkway give crews a leg-stretch with river views, and the breakwall at the river mouth is the spot to watch bar conditions the evening before departure. Courtesy is to leave the wharf as you found it; the arrangement survives on goodwill.