Wynnum Manly Yacht Club Marina (Manly Marina) operates a protected marina in Manly Harbour, Brisbane Bayside. The facility offers about 280 wet berths for boats ~8–19 m, monohull and multihull berths, dinghy storage racks, 40 dry trailer hardstands for boats up to 9 m, 240V shore power and fresh water on the pontoons, CCTV and night patrols, ample car parking, walkway trolleys, a dual-lane boat ramp with floating dock and a slipway/slipway services with an experienced Slipmaster. Berths are managed by the marina company; berth owners are shareholders of Wynnum Manly Yacht Club Marina Ltd. The marina is for club members, with short-term casual memberships available (contact marina office).
About Wynnum Manly Yacht Club Marina
At the head of Manly Boat Harbour, tucked deepest inside the breakwaters, sits the marina that locals call the Manly Marina, operated by Wynnum Manly Yacht Club Marina Ltd and promoted, with some justification, as the most protected marina in the harbour. Its structure is unusual and worth understanding. The 280 wet berths are not owned by the marina company; they are owned by individual club members, and buying a berth automatically makes the owner a shareholder in Wynnum Manly Yacht Club Marina Ltd, which manages rentals and operations on the members' behalf. Better still for owners, the foreshore leases have been extended to 2053 and berth owners pay no government lease extension fees, retaining ownership through the extensions, which explains the steady trickle of berth sales advertised through coastal brokers. The fleet skews to practical Queensland boating: wet berths from 8 to 19 metres including catamaran pens, around 40 dry berths for trailer boats to 9 metres, and 40 dinghy racks with their own ramp and retrieval system for the sailing fleet. The parent Wynnum Manly Yacht Club, which styles itself the friendliest yacht club in the bay, runs the licensed clubhouse, a waterfront dining room, an active regatta and social calendar, and even hosts the Manly Dragon Boat Club, founded in 2006, whose paddlers train from the same shore. Depths are honest rather than generous, two to three metres at low water, and the club makes no apology for it: this is a sailors' marina in the old style, sheltered, member-owned and walking distance from the Manly shops.
Marina facilities
The marina offers 280 floating wet berths accommodating vessels from 8 to 19 metres, monohulls and multihulls, each supplied with 240-volt power and fresh water, plus around 40 dry berths for trailer boats up to 9 metres. Dinghy sailors are catered for with 40 storage racks, a dinghy ramp and a retrieval system, and there is a boat ramp for trailer launching. A pump-out facility serves the arms, and security runs to lockup gates with night patrols, though the club proudly notes there are no walkway gates to wrestle with trolleys, which are provided at every walkway. Car parking is ample and within easy walking distance of the boats. The standout shore-side service is the full slipway operation run by an experienced Slipmaster, a genuine club slipway rather than a travelift dock, handling haul-outs for member vessels with the accumulated know-how that implies. Berthing policy is member-centric: the marina is for club members' use, but short-term casual memberships are available, which is how visiting boats get in, and berths are rented through the marina company on behalf of their individual owners. A sense of costs comes from recent berth sale listings: annual outgoings on a 13.5-metre berth ran about 3,524 dollars plus club membership around 590 dollars a year, competitive by south-east Queensland standards. The licensed clubhouse provides the social infrastructure, with waterfront dining, showers and club facilities for berth users, and full membership unlocks the hardstand, ramp and marina privileges, with current insurance certificates required annually at both the club and marina offices. Depth at mean low water is two to three metres, fine for most keelboats but worth noting for deeper designs.
Local sailing knowledge
Being the innermost marina in Manly Boat Harbour is the whole point here. Outside the breakwaters, Waterloo Bay can kick up a short chop in a fresh northerly, and the dredged entrance channel across the shallows demands the leads be followed, but once a boat is through the harbour entrance and into the WMYC arm the water is flat in nearly anything, which is exactly why members bought berths here and why the slipway has steady work. The club is a short walk from Manly Harbour Village, so provisioning, the bakery, the post office and the Muirs chandlery are all on foot, and the train from Manly station puts Brisbane's CBD 45 minutes away for crew changes. Out on the bay, the club's racing fleet knows every mark: the St Helena and Green Island courses, the run to Peel Island's Horseshoe Bay for weekend raft-ups, and south through the islands toward Canaipa and the Broadwater for the adventurous, though that passage shoals to less than a metre at low water and is a springs-only exercise. The club's social calendar, twilight races and dragon boat training keep the foreshore animated, and the clubhouse deck is where visiting crews end up after being waved in on a casual membership. Tides run to about two metres and the harbour fairway is dredged, but arrivals drawing much over two metres should time the top of the tide. Winter westerlies make for crisp, flat-water sailing on the bay, summer brings the reliable north-east sea breeze by early afternoon, and the pelican population around the cleaning tables is, members insist, the best-fed in Queensland.
