About
Manly Boatshed at a glance
Boatshed at 1B Bolingbroke Parade, Fairlight, offering swing moorings (usually full, book ahead), slipway, rigger, boatbuilder and engine repair; no permanent marina berths.
Service area: Sydney Harbour
- Marina type
- boatyard with moorings
- Operator
- Manly Boatshed
- Region
- Sydney Harbour
- Water body
- North Harbour (Sydney Harbour)
- Berth types
- swing moorings
Facilities and services
- slipway
- repairs & maintenance
- power & water
- kiosk
- tender service (weekends & Friday twilight)
- dinghy/kayak/SUP storage
- 21m public pontoon (2023)
- kayak dry storage (45)
- washdown
- destination berths
- showers
- internet
- water taxi access
About Manly Boatshed
Few Sydney Harbour businesses can trace one family through eight decades at the same address. The boatshed at 1B Bolingbroke Parade, Fairlight, has belonged to the Treharne family since 1945, when David Treharne moved from Forbes and bought the shed on the Fairlight foreshore in North Harbour. His son Hugh grew up in the flat above the business, learned his craft on these waters, helped his father pull distressed boaties out of trouble and went on to become tactician aboard Australia II when it lifted the America's Cup in 1983; he was inducted into the Boating Industry Hall of Fame in 2013. Third-generation manager Robbie Treharne now runs the shed, and the place still feels like a working boatshed rather than a marina: moorings on the bay, timber boats on the slip and a kettle in the kiosk. The shed has its moments of fame, having moored Jessica Watson's support catamaran Pink Lady on the eve of her return to the Sunshine Coast in 2010. Its biggest modern change came in 2023, when a $1.2 million project jointly funded with Transport for NSW demolished the tired slipways, jetty and wharf and replaced them with a 21-metre pontoon, dry storage for 45 kayaks, and power and washdown facilities for harbour users. Set on the Spit-to-Manly walk a ten-minute stroll from Manly Wharf, it serves as a destination mooring stop for Sydney cruisers as much as a permanent home for local boats. It remains the last traditional working boatshed on this side of North Harbour, outliving the slicker marinas that have replaced most of its peers around the harbour.
Marina facilities
Manly Boatshed is a mooring and boatyard operation, not a berth marina. There are no permanent marina berths; the core product is swing moorings in North Harbour, which are usually fully subscribed and need to be booked well in advance, with casual moorings rarely available. Cruisers' reports put mooring rates at roughly $400 a month for a 42-foot yacht. A free tender service runs for mooring customers on Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 5pm and on Friday evenings during daylight saving from 4pm to 8pm, and dinghies are held for exclusive use by mooring customers, with dinghy, kayak and paddleboard storage ashore. For visitors the shed keeps one or two destination berths with access to toilet, shower and internet, plus water taxi access for the Manly run. The boatyard side is the shed's backbone: a slipway that has comfortably handled a 38-foot, 14-tonne steel yacht, a rigger, boatbuilding and engine repair, with tradesmen regarded among the best-known and most respected boatbuilders on Sydney Harbour, though cruisers note they can be slow and often understaffed. Ashore there is a single toilet and shower available during operating hours and internet for customers. The kiosk trades every day from 7am to noon with coffee and cakes; the office runs weekdays 9am to 5pm on 02 9948 3473. The 2023 pontoon added power and washdown points for small craft and safe all-tide water access that emergency services also use. The shed's old habit of helping stranded skippers survives in its reputation, and the pontoon upgrade doubled as a community facility for kayakers launching onto North Harbour.
Local sailing knowledge
North Harbour is the sheltered lobe of Sydney Harbour inside the Heads between Manly and the Spit, and the approach from seaward is uncomplicated: through the Heads, round Dobroyd Head past Grotto Point light and into calm water, with the only real hazard being the fast ferry and recreational traffic in Manly Cove on the way past. The moorings lie along the Fairlight shore, well protected from all but strong nor-easters, and the holding and swinging room are good by harbour standards. Coming alongside the pontoon, note the tide range is full Sydney and the foreshore shallows quickly outside the channel. The shed's trump card is location: a ten-minute flat walk along the harbour path brings you to Manly Wharf, the Corso, supermarkets, pubs and the ferry to the city, and the Spit to Manly track runs right past the gate through some of the finest harbour bushland, so crew can walk off a passage in minutes. Fairlight's tidal pool and beach are a few hundred metres west for a swim, and Forty Baskets Beach, Reef Beach and the Dobroyd Head lookouts fill out the neighbourhood. Friday twilight racing out of Manly Yacht Club lights up the bay in summer. There is no fuel at the boatshed, so plan to bunker elsewhere on the harbour before settling onto a mooring, and remember casual moorings are rarely available, so ring the office ahead rather than arriving hopeful on a weekend. Watch the weather across the open fetch from the Heads, because a fresh southerly can still roll chop into the mooring field despite the enclosed setting.