Gold Coast Marine Industry is Surging

Boating has been going crazy on the Gold Coast in the past two years. Since the pandemic began, Australians have shown an unprecedented demand to get out on the water. People who couldn’t travel overseas (or take international cruises) turned to our own waters instead.

There’s been a huge boom in new and used boat sales in the region – with local boat builders recording record growth in demand. Boat builders are forecasting at least a 25 percent annual growth across the next two years – and the region is home to many of Australia’s most important shipyards and marina facilities. Every marina on the Gold Coast is close to full, while the Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show had its best year this year with over 44 000 visitors, up 20 percent on last year’s numbers. It’s Australia’s biggest celebration of the boating lifestyle – held across four days in May. It’s the most glamorous boating lifestyle event in the Southern Hemisphere and visitors clearly couldn’t get enough of it.

There’s also been a huge growth in people buying personal watercraft such as jet skis on the Gold Coast.

The Gold Coast Builds Australia’s Largest Megayacht Berths

The Southport Yacht Club has built Australia’s largest floating megayacht berth – a key part of a strategy to position Queensland as the superyacht hub for the Asia-Pacific region.

In February the Southport Yacht Club opened 11 floating pontoons which span 160 metres to accommodate megayachts up to a length of a whopping 130 metres.

The difference between a superyacht and a megayacht is size – a superyacht starts at 24 metres in length, whereas a megayacht is anything over 80 metres long (all megayachts are superyachts).

The Southport Yacht Club was already seen by many as Australia’s most progressive yacht clubs in recent times, and now it’s taken another step into the sailing future.

The 11 huge concrete pontoons will bring in millions of dollars into the region and feature the most high-tech boating and engineering technology available on Earth.

The project was a collaboration between the yacht club, the City Of Gold Coast and the Queensland Government to attract the megayacht market. The Gold Coast is perfectly positioned between the super and megayacht sailing playgrounds of Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef and is fast becoming one of the industry’s major hubs.