Marina service
Lavender Bay Boatshed (SailCorp)
About
Lavender Bay Boatshed (SailCorp) at a glance
Operator of about 40 swing moorings in Lavender Bay for vessels up to 65 ft, leased short to long term with a 7-day tender service.
Service area: Sydney Harbour
- Marina type
- moorings operation
- Operator
- SailCorp
- Region
- Sydney Harbour
- Water body
- Sydney Harbour (Lavender Bay)
- Maximum vessel
- 19.8 m
- Berth types
- swing moorings
Facilities and services
- power & water
- 7-day electric tender service
- annual tender membership for government moorings
- free row dinghies
- yacht management program
- onsite shipwrights
- vetted mechanics
- casual and overnight moorings
- New Year's Eve moorings
- yacht charter
About Lavender Bay Boatshed (SailCorp)
Lavender Bay is one of the most recognisable pieces of waterfront on Sydney Harbour, a small amphitheatre of water between McMahons Point and Milsons Point with Luna Park on one shoulder and an uninterrupted view across to the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. At 23a King George Street, the Lavender Bay Boatshed has long been the bay's working boatshed, and it is operated by SailCorp, a boutique harbour business better known for yacht charter and corporate sailing events. SailCorp runs about 40 swing moorings in the bay for vessels up to 65 feet, leased on short, medium and long terms, and the operation trades heavily on its setting: the city skyline screens the summer southerlies while the bulk of McMahons Point knocks the edge off winter westerlies, making the bay one of the more protected mooring spots on the lower north shore. It is also only five minutes under sail from the main harbour's prime cruising water, passing directly beneath the bridge and past the Opera House, a fact the operators lean on when marketing New Year's Eve moorings with front-row views of the fireworks. The boatshed culture is personal rather than corporate: a small team, long-tenured mooring customers who know each other, and a tender service that runs seven days a week on a quiet electric boat named Giuseppe. Alongside the moorings, SailCorp offers yacht management, maintenance coordination, brokerage-style services and its charter fleet, so the shed functions simultaneously as a mooring operator, a service desk and a charter base. For owners who want a Sydney Harbour address without marina pricing or marina anonymity, it is a distinctive middle ground.
Marina facilities
The core product is the swing mooring: roughly 40 moorings in Lavender Bay for monohulls and multihulls up to 65 feet, with published pricing of $18 per foot per month for monohulls and $20 per foot per month for multihulls, the tender service included in the monthly fee. That tender runs seven days a week, operated on Giuseppe, a quiet, fume-free electric boat, and it is one of the few mooring services in Sydney offering daily coverage; published operating hours run from about 9.30am to 4.30pm, extended by an hour in daylight saving, with runs roughly hourly on the half hour. Outside tender hours, mooring tenants have free use of row dinghies kept at the boatshed, so access to a boat is effectively around the clock. Owners holding yellow NSW Government moorings in Lavender Bay, Milsons Point or nearby can buy an annual tender membership giving unlimited use of the service without owning or storing a dinghy. Casual and overnight moorings are offered subject to availability, and premium New Year's Eve mooring reservations, placing boats directly in front of the harbour fireworks, are a specialty that books out well ahead. The service bench is deeper than a typical mooring contractor's: the boatshed keeps on-site shipwrights, coordinates carefully vetted mechanics, and can connect owners to a broad network of marine trades for repairs, servicing and antifouling. A Yacht Management Program covers the routine chores that defeat absent owners, from batteries, fresh water and cleaning to one-off or scheduled maintenance, priced from around $500 a month with the tender included. Power and water are available at the boatshed, and the team assists with loading at nearby public wharves. SailCorp's charter and corporate sailing arm, running skippered and bareboat yachts from the same shed, adds a further layer of boating support.
Local sailing knowledge
Approaching Lavender Bay from the main harbour is straightforward: pass under the Harbour Bridge, hold clear of the ferry lanes into Circular Quay and Milsons Point, and round into the bay, where there is effectively no room to anchor, so a mooring booking matters. The bay is well protected from the south and west but is open enough to the nor-east to catch a sea breeze on summer afternoons, and wash from harbour traffic occasionally rolls in off the main channel. Land access is unusually good for Sydney: Milsons Point station and ferry wharf are about a five-minute walk, North Sydney's buses and eateries are just up the hill, and King George Street offers free unrestricted parking on weekends, which tenants prize when loading for a cruise. Provisioning is best done at North Sydney or across the bridge in the city, though the cafes of Blues Point Road cover coffee and breakfast within a stroll of the shed. The neighbourhood carries genuine local colour: Wendy Whiteley's celebrated public garden tumbles down the slope beside the bay, Luna Park's grinning face watches the moorings from the northern corner, and the heritage boatsheds along the foreshore recall the bay's working past. On New Year's Eve the bay becomes some of the most contested water in the country, and mooring holders are effectively front-row ticket holders. For cruising, the location is hard to better: ten minutes to the main harbour's anchorages, an easy reach across to Rose Bay or up to Middle Harbour, and a protected spot to leave the boat when westerlies are blowing the harbour apart further upstream.