Marina service
Port Huon Marina (formerly Kermandie Marina)
About
Port Huon Marina (formerly Kermandie Marina) at a glance
Port Huon Marina (formerly Kermandie Marina) is an 80-berth floating marina on the Huon River at Port Huon, Tasmania. Berths provide water and power (3-phase on request) and the site offers shore facilities including toilets and showers, dock security and on-site car parking. The complex includes a boatyard with a 63-tonne travel lift, hardstand and ramp, and the marina supports shore-side vessel servicing and short- to long-term wet berthing for recreational craft.
Service area: Port Huon, TAS
- Marina type
- full-service marina
- Operator
- Port Huon Marina
- Region
- Huon Valley
- Water body
- Kermandie River
- Wet berths
- 80
- Dry storage
- Dry berths; shore storage
- Maximum vessel
- 25 m
- Berth types
- casual berthing, permanent berthing
Facilities and services
- power & water
- repairs & maintenance
- 63-ton travel lift
- upgraded boatyard with shore storage
- 3-phase power on request
- showers and toilets
- WiFi
- dock security
- on-site parking
- hotel accommodation, restaurant, bar and bottle shop adjacent
- indoor pool access nearby
Useful for sailors looking for
- Wet berthing and moorings
- Dry storage or hardstand
- Haul-out and slipping
- Maintenance and repairs
- Vessels up to 25 m
About Port Huon Marina (formerly Kermandie Marina)
The marina at Port Huon, long known as Kermandie Marina and now operating as Port Huon Marina, sits in Hospital Bay where the Kermandie River meets the Huon, about fifty kilometres south of Hobart in the heart of the Huon Valley. The location is steeped in maritime history: Port Huon was once the district's most important port, dispatching the valley's famous apples to the world from wharves between Shipwrights Point and Whale Point, and the art-deco Kermandie Hotel has watched over the waterfront since 1932. The modern marina's story begins with the Noakes Group, which added the site in 2005; founder Sean Langman and partner Chris Stannard bought the adjoining hotel in 2007 and rebuilt the facility into an 80-berth floating marina with an upgraded boatyard. In recent years it has traded under the Port Huon Marina name with a 63-tonne travel lift working the yard. The character of the place is distinctly southern Tasmanian: still mornings with mist on the river, orchards climbing the hillsides, the peaks of the Hartz Mountains behind, and a wetland alive with black swans, cormorants and grebes right off the pontoons. Cruising sailors swapping stories aboard is the stock scene, and the historic Huon pine ketch Olive May, built in 1880 and Australia's oldest charter vessel in survey, has been a long-term fixture on the pontoons. It is a quiet, friendly, boat-focused corner far removed from Hobart's bustle. Berth holders are a blend of local Huon Valley boaters, Hobart owners who prefer the lower berth costs and quiet of the valley, and interstate cruisers who leave their boats here year-round and fly down for the season, a pattern the original Noakes-era operators deliberately cultivated.
Marina facilities
The marina provides 80 wet berths with power and water at every berth, three-phase power available on request, and dock security covering all berths on a 24-hour basis, which underpins its popularity as a leave-the-boat destination. Maximum berth length is 82 feet, about 25 metres, and the maximum draft accepted is 11 feet. Berthing enquiries are handled on 0439 164 320, and both casual and permanent arrangements are offered. The attached boatyard runs a 63-tonne travel lift, the largest haul-out capacity in the Huon region, serving a hardstand with dry berths and shore storage for boats laid up ashore; repairs and maintenance are undertaken on site, and the marina is a member of the Marina Industries Association. Showers and toilets are on site, Wi-Fi is available, and there is car parking for berth holders; laundry facilities are found in Geeveston and Franklin rather than at the marina. There is no fuel berth advertised, so crews generally fuel at Kettering, Margate or Dover before coming up the Huon. The Kermandie Hotel across the Huon Highway functions as the marina's clubhouse in practice, offering boutique accommodation, the Esperance a la carte restaurant open several nights a week, a public bar serving lunch and dinner daily, and a bottle shop, with the restored ferry Radar running monthly Huon River cruises from the adjacent wharf in season. Shipwrights Point reserve, a short distance south, adds a public boat ramp, two public jetties, toilets and electric barbecues, and the Port Huon Trading Post provides a cafe and basic stores about a kilometre away.
Local sailing knowledge
Access is the detail every skipper asks about first: the marina lies up a narrow, buoy-marked channel close to the shore of Hospital Bay, with a minimum depth variously reported at two to two-and-a-half metres, so deep-draft boats should work the tide and proceed slowly on a rising tide the first time in. Many cruising yachts simply anchor in Hospital Bay among the moored fleet and dinghy in, which is a perfectly good option with shelter from most quarters. The Huon River upstream is one of Tasmania's loveliest sheltered passages: a marked channel leads past fish farms and orchards to Franklin and its Wooden Boat Centre, where a basic marina and anchoring off in the river allow a visit to the boat-building workshops, and Huonville beyond provides full services. Downstream, the Huon meets the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, opening the whole Bruny Island and Channel cruising ground, while Dover and Port Esperance lie a day to the south. Ashore, Geeveston, six kilometres away, has supermarkets, a famous bakery, a platypus walk and the livelier end of the valley's café scene, and day tours run from the hotel door to Hastings Caves and the Tahune AirWalk. Watch for fish-farm leases on every reach of the river and give any slow-moving aquaculture vessel a wide berth, as pens may be under tow. Autumn brings the apple harvest and migrating whales are occasionally spotted in the Channel, small compensations for the cool that keeps this valley green year-round. Port Huon itself retains the bones of its apple-port era, and the old port buildings and big PORT HUON sign make an evocative arrival backdrop for boats working up the bay.