Sanctuary Cove Marina (Gold Coast)

Location

Masthead Way, Sanctuary Cove, Hope Island, on the Coomera River, Gold Coast, Queensland 4212, at about 27 51.1 S 153 21.8 E

Operator

Mulpha Australia, the Australian arm of the Malaysian Mulpha International group, which also owns the resort, golf courses and the boat show

Berths

481 published by the marina; the Gold Anchor accreditation listing describes 303; Marina World gives around 400 including 63 for superyachts once the current works are finished. Mulpha has announced 25 further superyacht berths

Vessel range

jet skis to 150 ft, about 45.7 m, per the marina. The Gold Anchor listing gives a 50 m maximum

Harbour master limits, Maritime Safety Queensland: Gold Coast Seaway entrance 65 m with 1 m under keel clearance; South Channel 65 m with 0.5 m; North Channel to the Gold Coast Marine Precinct via the Coomera River 60 m with 0.5 m, and vessels over 35 m individually assessed

Depths at LAT

about 4.5 m east of the Seaway, 4.8 m inside the Seaway, 4.3 m in the South Channel, 3.0 m from Paradise Point to Gold Coast City Marina, and about 3.0 m at Sanctuary Cove Marina Island

Air draught

no height restriction on the route in from the Pacific via the Broadwater and the Coomera River, per the Gold Anchor listing

Tidal streams

to 2.0 knots in the South Channel, 2.5 knots in the North Channel and 3.2 knots in the Seaway channel, increasing after heavy rain

VHF

the marina does not publish a working channel. The Seaway is a designated coastal bar and vessels log on and off with Seaway Tower, VMR Southport or Coast Guard Southport on channel 16 or 73

Services

fuel dock, pump-out through a partner operator, water and power to berths, 24/7 CCTV, gated access, laundry, private amenities, chandlery, brokerage row and a 19-venue dining precinct

Covered berths

48 covered berths of 14.5 m, the first covered marina berths in the Southern Hemisphere, opened as the final stage of a multi-million-dollar upgrade

Helipad

on site, with landings booked in advance through the marina office

Fuel

diesel and premium unleaded at the fuel dock, open 24/7 by card swipe, fast-flow diesel at 120 litres a minute, bulk fuel through the marina office. No price published

Shore power

metered to every berth from a 15 amp supply, with three phase for larger vessels. Nothing above that is specified and no tariff is published

Accreditation

Five Gold Anchor Platinum under the Global Gold Anchor scheme, Superyacht Ready, Level 3 Clean Marina, and Marina of the Year 2023

Customs status

not a port of entry. Southport Yacht Club on the Broadwater is the Gold Coast port of entry for international arrivals and departures

Refit

Gold Coast City Marina and Shipyard, 300 tonne hoist and capacity for up to 50 superyachts, and The Boat Works, 55 acres with six haul-out machines the largest of which is 300 tonnes and over 70 sheds with about 20 m air draught, both upstream at Coomera

Airports

Gold Coast at Coolangatta 48.8 km and about 42 minutes; Brisbane about 96 km and 50 to 60 minutes

Fixed date

Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show, the Southern Hemisphere's largest on-water show. The 37th edition ran 21 to 24 May 2026 with over 41,000 visitors and more than 800 vessels; the 38th runs 20 to 23 May 2027

Berth tariff

not published in any form. Casual, permanent and superyacht berthing are all quoted by telephone on +61 7 5577 6069

A river address inside a gated village

The marina is at Masthead Way, Sanctuary Cove, on the Coomera River at Hope Island in the northern Gold Coast, at about 27 degrees 51.1 minutes south, 153 degrees 21.8 minutes east. It is owned and run by Mulpha Australia, the Australian arm of the Malaysian Mulpha International group, as part of a wider estate that includes the InterContinental Sanctuary Cove Resort, two championship golf courses, a country club and the Marine Village retail and dining precinct. The marina office works Monday to Friday 08:30 to 17:00 and weekends 10:00 to 16:00. Security gates close at 17:00 and there is no access afterwards without a pass.

What separates it from the rest of the Gold Coast is that you berth inside the amenity rather than beside it. Step off the pontoon and you are in a precinct with roughly nineteen places to eat, from Bistro 19 and Rise Bakery through George's Paragon Seafood, Kuroki Teppanyaki, Chim Thai, Dragon Cove, Pablito's, Tara Far East Dining and Destino to the Cove Tavern and the Lagoon Beach Club. The accreditations are the top of their respective scales: Five Gold Anchor Platinum under the Global Gold Anchor scheme, Superyacht Ready, and Level 3 Clean Marina, plus Marina of the Year in 2023. For an owner who wants a home port that his family will also use, that combination is rare in Australia and rarer still on a river.

The berth count, and the 25 that are coming

The marina states 481 berths taking everything from jet skis to yachts of 150 feet, about 45.7 metres. The accreditation listing for the marina held by The Yacht Harbour Association describes 303 berths with a maximum of 50 metres, and Sanctuary Cove's own storage business still refers to over 226 moorings. A fourth and more recent figure comes from an independent trade title: Marina World, reporting the current works in November 2025, wrote that on completion the marina would have around 400 berths, including 63 for superyachts. The likeliest reading is that 481 counts every wet position on the estate while 303 is the accredited marina proper, but the marina does not reconcile the numbers anywhere and nor does the accreditation body, so an owner should treat the headline as an estate figure rather than a berth inventory. The only place outside the marina's own pages where Yotters found 481 repeated is a Club Marine article carrying a Brought to you by Sanctuary Cove line. That is sponsored content and it is not corroboration.

The expansion is better documented than the marina's own announcement of it. Mulpha has said it is expanding the superyacht arm of Sanctuary Cove Marina by 25 new superyacht berths, framed as part of an acceleration of marine and tourism investment ahead of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games and intended to draw more international vessels to the region. Marina World, on 17 November 2025, put dates and numbers on the first stage of the work: the K Arm extension adds 13 berths for vessels of 18 to 20 metres, construction was under way and expected to finish by late January 2026, and on completion the marina would hold around 400 berths, 63 of them for superyachts. The physical asset nothing else in the hemisphere has is older than any of it: 48 covered berths of 14.5 metres, opened as the final stage of a multi-million-dollar upgrade and the first covered marina berths in the Southern Hemisphere, most of them committed while they were still being built. Berthing comes in three forms: casual and day visitor, permanent, and a dedicated superyacht offer. Permanent holders get the Platinum Berth Holder Program, which carries Country Club membership and golf, resort pool access, accommodation and dining offers and partner benefits. The marina says berths have to be booked in advance because availability is limited, and the only route to a price is the telephone.

The marina's limit is 150 feet; the harbour master's limit on the river that reaches it is 60 metres, and anything over 35 metres is assessed one boat at a time.

Getting in: the Seaway, the river, and the legal limits

This is the part a large yacht has to settle first, and the binding authority is not the marina. Maritime Safety Queensland publishes vessel size restrictions for the Gold Coast as a non-trading port and they are specific. The Gold Coast Seaway entrance is limited to 65 metres length with one metre of under keel clearance. The South Channel through the Broadwater is limited to 65 metres with 0.5 metres under keel clearance. The North Channel to the Gold Coast Marine Precinct via the Coomera River, which is the reach Sanctuary Cove sits on, is limited to 60 metres, with 0.5 metres under keel clearance, and vessels over 35 metres in length are individually assessed for acceptance subject to conditions. In other words, the practical ceiling is a length the marina's own 150 foot figure already sits under, and above 35 metres you are asking permission rather than booking a berth. It is a working process rather than a wall, and the proof of that is downstream: Southport Yacht Club on the Broadwater, which is also the Gold Coast port of entry, holds Australia's largest superyacht berth, a 160 metre floating dock built for vessels to 130 metres or two yachts of about 70 metres, with 600 amp power, a drive-on pontoon for provisioning and a service road for craning and bunkering. It sits on a channel the same regulator caps at 65 metres. If the river caps your yacht, that berth and not this one is the Gold Coast answer, and it is twenty minutes of the estate's road away.

The depths behind those rules are shallow by superyacht standards. Charted minima at lowest astronomical tide are about 4.5 metres east of the Seaway on the centreline, 4.8 metres inside the Seaway west of the tower, 4.3 metres in the South Channel and 3.0 metres from Paradise Point up to Gold Coast City Marina, with a minimum of about 3.0 metres at Sanctuary Cove Marina Island. Navigation at mid to high tide is the standard advice. The Coomera River divides around Coomera Island and the southern arm is the marked route; the northern arm needs local knowledge. Tidal streams run to 2.0 knots in the South Channel, 2.5 knots in the North Channel and 3.2 knots in the Seaway channel, and increase after heavy rain. Height is the one thing that does not constrain you: the accreditation listing describes direct access to the Pacific via the Broadwater and the Coomera River without height restrictions.

How far the sea actually is

Sanctuary Cove is protected water, and that is the trade. From the Gold Coast Seaway to Gold Coast City Marina, a little upstream of Sanctuary Cove, is about an hour and a half at six knots. That is the whole outbound leg before you reach the bar, and a yacht doing a day trip offshore spends three hours of it in a river and a broadwater at displacement speed with a speed limit and a marine mammal protection regime over it.

The Seaway itself is a designated coastal bar. Vessels crossing are asked to log on with Seaway Tower, VMR Southport or Coast Guard Southport on VHF channel 16 or 73 and to log off on return, and a life jacket is compulsory in an open boat under 4.8 metres. Bar crossings on the Queensland coast are conditions-dependent by nature and the Seaway is the good one; the alternative northern exit at Jumpinpin is not a route for a yacht. None of this is a problem for a boat that leaves for a week and comes back. It is a real problem for an owner whose mental model is a Mediterranean marina where the open sea is a mile from the breakwater.

The refit cluster on the same river

The strongest argument for basing a yacht here has nothing to do with the marina. The Gold Coast Marine Precinct, immediately upstream at Coomera, is the largest concentration of refit and repair capacity in Australia. Gold Coast City Marina and Shipyard upgraded its Italian-built ASCOM mobile hoist to 300 tonnes, the largest lift on the Gold Coast, and describes capacity for up to 50 superyachts at any one time. The Boat Works occupies 55 acres and runs a fleet of six haul-out machines, the largest of them 300 tonnes, more than 70 refit sheds with about 20 metres of air draught, extensive covered hardstand and a dedicated superyacht precinct. Its Stage 5, an AUD 30 million investment in more sheds, more hardstand and the sixth haul-out machine that took the yard towards 100 undercover spaces, was completed in 2023.

This matters for the reason it matters at Tivat or Palma: an owner who bases here does not make a delivery passage to have work done. It also matters commercially, because Queensland's superyacht economy is built on foreign yachts arriving for refit and staying to cruise. The reach itself has been dredged for that traffic. The Queensland government funded a dredged sediment management facility in 2017 specifically to allow the Coomera River from Sanctuary Cove up to Gold Coast City Marina to be taken to 3.5 metres for the first time, having previously been unable to dredge parts of the river for want of a disposal solution. That is the depth to hold in mind, and it is why the harbour master's under keel clearance rule is 0.5 metres rather than something more generous.

The boat show that owns the week in May

The Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show is held here, is run by Mulpha Events, and is the Southern Hemisphere's largest on-water show. The 37th edition ran 21 to 24 May 2026 and the 38th is set for 20 to 23 May 2027. The 2026 show drew over 41,000 visitors to a sold-out exhibition, with more than 800 vessels, over 2,500 marine products and accessories and more than 70 new product and vessel launches. Both the attendance and the boat count were down on the year before: 2025 ran 824 boats, 422 of them on water and 402 ashore, over 300 exhibitors and more than 45,000 visitors, and the organisers put that year's impact on the Queensland economy at an estimated AUD 471 million in direct commercial and tourism terms. Exhibitor space has sold out every year since 2022, and a berth holder should read the 2026 numbers as the current scale rather than the 2025 ones.

For a berth holder this is either the reason to be here or the week to be elsewhere. The marina becomes a show ground, the estate fills, and the on-water displays take pontoon space. For a buyer it is the single most efficient week of the year in the Asia-Pacific: the major brokerages resident at Sanctuary Cove include Horizon Motor Yachts, Leigh-Smith Yachts, Princess Yachts Australia, Maritimo and DCH Marine for Sunseeker and Saxdor, so the market you would otherwise fly around to see is on the same promenade. Plan a cruising visit for any week except that one, and plan a buying visit for exactly that one.

Bringing a yacht in: duty, GST and the permit you do not choose

A yacht imported permanently into Australia attracts a general customs duty of 5 per cent on the customs value, and 10 per cent GST calculated on the customs value plus international transport and insurance plus the duty. That is the full importation position, and it is the one that applies if the yacht is entered for home consumption. Temporary arrangements avoid it. A superyacht must lodge a pre-arrival report with the Australian Border Force at least 96 hours before arrival, and biosecurity clearance from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is required on arrival, with inspection for timber pests, food and animals.

The point most owners get wrong is that the importation option is not the captain's choice. Border Force selects one of three on the day, based on the intended use of the vessel: temporary importation for up to 12 months, a Control Permit for pleasure cruising only, or full importation with duty and GST. Superyacht Australia's own guidance is that most yachts arriving for some refit and some cruising are cleared in on a Control Permit. A yacht under temporary importation cannot be sold, chartered or used commercially without prior approval and the tax that goes with it. Crew need a Temporary Activity visa, subclass 408, obtained before arrival, and guests need visitor visas. Arrival has to be at a designated port of entry, and on the Gold Coast that is Southport Yacht Club on the Broadwater, not Sanctuary Cove.

The 2019 charter law, and the date it ran out

Before 2019 a foreign-flagged superyacht could not legally charter in Australia, because moving paying passengers between Australian states is coastal trading and coastal trading was closed to it. The Special Recreational Vessels Act 2019, passed in December of that year, let special recreational vessels opt in to the coastal trading regime, so that a foreign-flagged yacht could obtain a Coastal Trading Temporary Licence and charter here. The licence application fee is quoted at AUD 400, the licence runs 12 months and is renewable, and the practical route is through an agent trained and endorsed by Superyacht Australia who can access the licensing portal. GST applies to the value of the charter, and a yacht chartering commercially has to be entered for home consumption, hold an Australian Business Number and be registered for GST.

The date to know is that the Special Recreational Vessels Act sunset on 30 June 2025, as the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts states on its own coastal trading page. Yotters could not establish from a primary source what replaced it or whether it was extended, and industry material still in circulation describes the Act in the present tense, which is exactly the kind of gap that costs an owner a season. If you are planning a charter programme in Australian waters, treat the framework as live rather than settled and get the current position in writing from an endorsed agent before you commit a delivery.

Airports, and the cyclone question

Gold Coast Airport at Coolangatta is 48.8 kilometres away, about 42 minutes by road, with private transfers from about AUD 125 for a sedan and rideshare quoted in the AUD 80 to 150 range. Brisbane Airport is roughly 96 kilometres north, quoted by chauffeur operators at 50 to 60 minutes direct and 55 to 80 minutes at peak. Brisbane is the long-haul gateway; Coolangatta is closer, has international traffic across the Asia-Pacific and is the airport crews use. Helensvale station on the Gold Coast rail line is about 5 kilometres away, but there is no useful public transport into the estate itself, so guests arrive by car, or they do not arrive by road at all: the marina publishes a helipad and takes landings booked in advance through the marina office, which for the owner this page is written for turns a 42-minute transfer into a few minutes.

The weather risk here is not a normal Mediterranean winter. The Queensland cyclone season runs November to April, and the Gold Coast, though south of the usual track, is not outside it. Tropical Cyclone Alfred crossed the coast on 7 and 8 March 2025 and the Gold Coast City Council describes it as one of the most significant weather events the city has faced in fifty years, with destructive winds, extreme rainfall and flash flooding from 6 March. Gusts of over 100 km/h were recorded at the Gold Coast and at Byron Bay on 7 March. Alfred crossed Moreton Island as a category one late on 7 March, and the Bureau of Meteorology downgraded it to a tropical low at 06:45 on 8 March, before it crossed the mainland near Brisbane that evening. At mainland landfall it was no longer a cyclone. The marine precinct came through it well: The Boat Works blocked and strapped vessels, double-tied boats and moved some away from the marina with Maritime Safety Queensland's help, and Gold Coast City Marina reported securing everything afloat and ashore, with the industry's damage described as minimal and the work mostly flood, debris and mud. That is a good result, and it should be read for what it was: a system that had already stopped being a cyclone by the time it reached the mainland, not a direct hit at strength.

Для кого: An owner of a yacht up to about 35 metres who wants an Australian home port with a resort and a 300 tonne refit yard on the same river, and who accepts an hour and a half to the sea, a cyclone season and a harbour master who assesses anything over 35 metres case by case.