Marina service
St Helens Berthing Piers (MAST)
About
St Helens Berthing Piers (MAST) at a glance
Two MAST-managed concrete berthing piers on Georges Bay Esplanade, St Helens, with power, water and lighting for vessels up to 70t displacement on a daily service charge; diesel bowser and marine dealer nearby.
Service area: East Coast Tasmania
- Marina type
- government/transport wharf-marina
- Operator
- Marine and Safety Tasmania
- Region
- East Coast Tasmania
- Water body
- Georges Bay
- Berth types
- casual berthing
Facilities and services
- power & water
- lighting
- nearby marine dealer
- nearby toilets
- nearby petrol
- diesel delivery
About St Helens Berthing Piers (MAST)
St Helens Berthing Piers are a working waterfront facility rather than a marina in the recreational sense: two concrete piers, each with a deck area of 262.5 square metres, standing on the Georges Bay Esplanade at the head of town. They are owned and managed by Marine and Safety Tasmania, the state marine authority, and they serve a dual clientele. The local commercial fishing fleet, one of the most active on Tasmania's east coast, works the same frontage, and visiting vessels, from cruising yachts on the Bass Strait run to game fishing boats chasing the annual tuna and marlin season, slot in alongside. The piers sit within a port town that has traded on the sea since the 1830s: Georges Bay was sounded and charted while Van Diemen's Land was still young, and St Helens grew on fishing, timber and, later, tourism as the largest town on the east coast north of Triabunna. What visitors notice first is the scale of the bay itself, a broad enclosed sheet of water behind a bar and a long sea wall, with the piers tucked into its most sheltered corner a short stroll from the main street. There is no clubhouse, no marina office and no pen system; the arrangement is honest government infrastructure, kept functional for vessels up to 70 tonnes displacement, with the town's shops, marine dealer and services immediately behind it. For east coast passage-makers the piers are the practical reason to cross the bar at all: a secure alongside berth with power and water inside a bay that can otherwise be awkward to work.
Marina facilities
Facilities on the piers are simple but real. MAST manages shore power and water outlets on both concrete piers, along with lighting for night work, and levies a daily service charge for their use; vessels are limited to 70 tonnes displacement and the decks themselves are rated for pedestrian loads only, so vehicles stay on the esplanade. Because these are State jetties, MAST's restricted-area rules apply: a red zone governs fair use between commercial and recreational boats, the displayed time limit is currently three days, and longer stays need a written request to MAST with justification, since overstaying without permission can attract a fine. Skippers should check in at the MAST office, which shares a building with St Helens Marine Rescue on the waterfront, for instructions on where to lie and current charges. Cruising guides stress that berths here are shared with the fishing fleet and must not impede working boats; good fenders and fender boards are essential against the concrete and the occasional fishing boat neighbour. Services immediately around the piers fill most gaps: public toilets a short distance away, showers likewise, car parking on the esplanade, petrol close by and a marine dealer within walking distance. Diesel is delivered at St Helens Wharf by Georges Bay Diesel, contactable on 0408 130 226. The town behind does the rest, with two IGA supermarkets on the main street under five minutes' walk, hardware and bait suppliers, and a Saturday market in the library car park. There is no pump-out, no laundry on the wharf and no wifi; this is infrastructure for boats that are passing through or working, not a destination marina.
Local sailing knowledge
Everything about a visit here begins with the bar. The entrance to Georges Bay is one of Tasmania's notorious bar crossings, shifting with sand, tide and rainfall; easterly and north-easterly swells can make it impassable, and historical soundings from the 1820s read much like modern ones. St Helens Marine Rescue, a volunteer organisation, monitors VHF 16 and 2524kHz HF, and will escort vessels across on request, which first-timers are strongly advised to accept; the kindest window is the last couple of hours of a rising tide. Inside the bar a narrow marked channel leads into the bay, and the stretch past Pelican Point is shallow enough that deeper-draft vessels should time it near high water; dredging and training-wall works over the years have improved but not eliminated the problem. Once through, the bay rewards the effort. Georges Bay is described locally as a mecca for bay fishing, with two double-lane ramps at the town and Stieglitz, and the piers put you alongside the town rather than a dinghy ride away. Provisioning is easy at the two supermarkets, and meals range from the Crossroads Winebar and Cafe on Quail Street to licensed cafes around the forum complex. For cruising, St Helens is the northernmost port on the east coast and the logical staging point for Bass Strait crossings or the run south: anchorages at Skeleton Bay and Seaton Cove in the Bay of Fires lie to the north in westerly weather, while the southern side of St Helens Island, six miles down, gives a fair-weather stop in sand. Callow's Coaches run daily to Launceston for crew changes.