Gold Coast to Sydney is about 470 nautical miles of open coast, with the East Australian Current behind you and a handful of genuinely all-weather harbours to break it up. A 20-knot motor yacht does it in three or four days with the weather on side; a displacement boat in five to seven. The coast is not difficult, but it punishes impatience: most of the trouble on this run comes from crossing a bar on the wrong tide or leaving port into a southerly change. Here is how to plan it, and what to do when you get there.
Key facts
- Distance — about 470 nm Seaway to Sydney Heads; plot your own legs before trusting any table
- Time — 21 to 26 hours’ running at 18 to 22 knots; three to four days with stops; five to seven at displacement speed
- All-weather harbours — Sydney, Newcastle, Port Stephens; Coffs Harbour has no bar but a shoaling entrance
- Bar entrances — Ballina, Yamba, Port Macquarie, Camden Haven, Forster, Swansea: lifejackets on, incoming tide only
- Current — the East Australian Current sets south at 2 to 3 knots, sometimes nearly 4; it is your friend this way
- Season — spring onwards, when the northerlies arrive; East Coast Lows peak June and July
The legs
The distances below are drawn from sail-training and cruising sources and do not agree with each other to the mile. Use them for planning, then measure the legs on your own chart with the offshore distance you actually intend to run.
| Leg | Distance | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gold Coast Seaway to Yamba (Clarence River) | overnight run; 12 to 16 hours in a slow boat | Cross the Seaway on the flood; arrive Yamba one to two hours before high water |
| Yamba to Coffs Harbour | about 58 nm | Coffs has no bar; the 2025 rebuild gave it 143 new berths for 10 to 30 m |
| Coffs Harbour to Port Macquarie | about 72 nm | Port Macquarie is a designated bar; Marine Rescue there has a bar webcam |
| Port Macquarie to Camden Haven (Laurieton) | about 20 nm | Bar entrance |
| Camden Haven to Port Stephens | about 83 nm, via Forster if needed | Forster is one of the better bars, protected from southerlies by Cape Hawke |
| Port Stephens to Newcastle | about 26 nm | Both deep, wide, no bar |
| Newcastle to Broken Bay (Pittwater) | about 38 nm | Pittwater is 16 nm north of Sydney Heads |
| Broken Bay to Sydney Harbour | about 16 nm | Wide, deep, fully open entrance |
Southport to Coffs is roughly 150 nm, Coffs to Port Stephens 160 nm and the longest single leg, and Port Stephens to Sydney 85 to 110 nm depending on where you finish. A fast motor yacht that leaves the Seaway at first light on the flood can be in Coffs for dinner, Port Stephens the next night, and Sydney Harbour by the third afternoon.
Harbours: all-weather or bar
The single most useful thing to know about this coast is which entrances you can take in anything and which ones you cannot.
- No bar, any weather: Sydney Harbour, Newcastle and Port Stephens have wide, deep entrances. Newcastle is a commercial port; keep a listening watch on VHF 9 and 16 and stay clear of the shipping channel. Marine Rescue runs a 24-hour base at Port Stephens.
- No bar, but watch the entrance: Coffs Harbour. The marina channel is dredged to 4.5 m but sand built up at the entrance faster than expected in 2025, and emergency dredging ran from October; a ten-year dredging programme is proposed. Berths are for 10 to 30 m vessels, rates on enquiry.
- Designated coastal bars: Ballina, Iluka and Yamba, Port Macquarie, Camden Haven, Forster and Tuncurry, and Swansea at Lake Macquarie. On every one of these NSW law requires every person aboard to wear a lifejacket for the crossing. The official advice is short: cross on an incoming tide, never on the ebb, never without local knowledge, and if in doubt, don’t.
Two bars deserve particular respect. Ballina shoals to 3 to 4 m and breaks heavily across the entrance in a large easterly swell; a yacht hit the southern breakwall there in May 2026 and the Marine Rescue vessel that went to help capsized on the bar, with three people lost. Yamba’s bar sits about a mile out and pumps in an east-south-easterly swell, the gap in the Iluka training wall is five metres deep but only wide enough for one and a half boats, and the current through the walls can run more than two knots. Inside, the holding at Iluka is excellent.
The NSW Government runs bar webcams at Tweed Heads, Brunswick Heads, Ballina, Evans Head, Iluka and Yamba, Coffs, Nambucca, South West Rocks, Port Macquarie, Camden Haven, Forster, Shoal Bay and Swansea. Watch the full two-minute cycle before you commit.
Worth knowing
For a 40 to 90 ft motor yacht the simplest plan skips the bars entirely: Seaway, Coffs, Port Stephens or Newcastle, Sydney. Three overnight stops, all of them enterable in the dark and in a blow. Keep Yamba and Forster in reserve for a boat that needs to shorten a leg.
Weather and the current
- The East Australian Current sets south along the shelf at two to three knots and can approach four. North of Port Macquarie it sits five to ten miles offshore; south of Sydney it is thirty or forty miles out. It moves inshore and strengthens in the warm months, weakens and moves offshore in winter. Heading south, find it. Heading home, stay within three to five miles of the coast and inside the 50-metre contour.
- Wind against current. A fresh southerly blowing against a two-to-three-knot south-setting current builds steep, breaking seas. The bad spots are off Smoky Cape, Seal Rocks and outside Sydney over the canyon. If a southerly is forecast, be in port before it arrives, not fighting it in the current.
- Southerly busters are the NSW speciality: winds gusting over 29 knots with a temperature drop of at least five degrees inside three hours, mostly October to February, late afternoon or evening after a hot day, often with little cloud to warn you. Sydney averages about five a year and they are strongest between Nowra and Newcastle.
- Season. Heading south, October onwards is the traditional window, when the northerlies start. East Coast Lows peak in June and July and produce 50 to 80 knots and five-metre seas; another day or two in port is the difference.
- Forecasts. The Bureau’s coastal waters zones for this trip, north to south: Byron Coast, Coffs Coast, Macquarie Coast, Hunter Coast and Sydney Coast, plus Sydney Enclosed Waters for the harbour and Pittwater. Log on with Marine Rescue NSW by VHF 16, the Marine Rescue app or 02 9471 8300, with destination, people aboard and expected arrival.
Fuel
Marina diesel prices along the way, as published:
| Where | Diesel | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club | $2.878/L on 6 September 2026 | 24-hour card berth on F Arm; 10% off over 1,000 L, members 12% |
| Sydney: The Spit and Rushcutters Bay (d’Albora) | about $2.64/L, undated list | Both 24/7; live prices in the d’Albora app, members 20c/L off |
| Sydney: Roseville Bridge, Birkenhead Point | $2.68 and $2.52/L, undated list | Daytime hours |
| Pittwater: RMYC Broken Bay, The Quays, Holmeport | $2.28 to $2.40/L, undated list | The Quays fuel wharf takes vessels up to 80 ft |
| Rose Bay Marina, RMYC Point Piper | price on the day | Rose Bay has a fuel dock and free pump-out; Point Piper fuels 7.30am to 3.30pm |
| Coffs Harbour | no diesel berth for a large yacht | The new Transport for NSW facility is unleaded only, vessels to 12 m |
Nelson Bay’s d’Albora fuel wharf runs 24/7 too, price in the app. Plan Coffs as an overnight stop, not a fuel stop, and top up at Newcastle or Port Stephens if you need it before Sydney. A boat burning 180 litres an hour at cruise will use around 4,000 to 5,000 litres on the run; check the range calculation against the longest leg with a third in reserve.
Where to berth in Sydney
Every Sydney marina quotes casual berthing on application, so book before you leave the Gold Coast, not when you round the Heads.
| Marina | Takes | What is published |
|---|---|---|
| d’Albora Rushcutters Bay | vessels to 40 m, 106 berths | casual subject to availability; annual berths reported at $800 to $1,500 a metre |
| d’Albora The Spit, Mosman | vessels to 50 m, 203 berths, superyacht berths | casual available; 24/7 fuel |
| Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Rushcutters Bay | 213 deep-water berths | casual on request via online form |
| Royal Motor Yacht Club, Point Piper | members and guests | bookings essential; fuel wharf 7.30am to 3.30pm |
| Rose Bay Marina | 10 to 37 m, 58 berths | casual berthing, pick-up and drop-off, 67 moorings to 16 m |
| Jones Bay Superyacht Marina, Pyrmont | 20 m to over 90 m | casual and permanent on request |
| Sydney Superyacht Marina, Rozelle | alongside to 75 m | casual, seasonal and annual on application |
| Royal Prince Alfred, Pittwater | vessels to about 30 m | 2020 casual rates: 51 to 60 ft $90 a night non-member, larger $100 |
| Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club | 180 berths | published casual rates from 1 August 2026: 18 m $132 a night, 24 m $166, 30 m $200 |
For scale, a 24-hour berth for a boat up to 23 m at Sydney Harbour Marina in Cockle Bay was $265 plus $50 shore power in December 2023, against $241 a night for a berth to 25 m at Southport Yacht Club. Sydney annual berths run somewhere between $500 and $2,000 a metre a year depending on where.
The NSW rules that catch Queensland boats
- Registration. A Queensland-registered yacht can cruise NSW without NSW registration provided she is not normally used there, has not been in NSW more than three months, and carries her Queensland numbers and identification plate. After three months you need NSW registration and a NSW licence.
- Safety gear on open waters. A registered, in-date 406 MHz EPIRB and a marine radio if two nautical miles or more offshore, two orange smoke and two red hand flares, a V-sheet, a fluid-filled compass, a chart, anchor, bilge pump, fire extinguisher, sound signal, waterproof torch, and a lifejacket for everyone. Queensland’s list is close, but check the NSW one before you leave.
- Lifejackets on bars. Everyone, every designated bar, no exceptions.
- Sydney Harbour. The Bridge Transit Zone, from Bennelong and Kirribilli Points to Millers and Blues Points, has a 15-knot limit with no anchoring or drifting. Ferries showing an orange diamond have priority; keep 200 m from their bow and 30 m from their sides and stern. Posted limits are usually 4 or 8 knots, sometimes 6, 10 or 15. Sydney VTS works VHF 13 and every vessel on the harbour is required to keep a listening watch. Personal watercraft are banned on the harbour altogether.
Run her yourself, or send her down
Owners who enjoy the passage make a week of it. Owners who want the boat in Sydney for the summer send her down with a delivery skipper and fly. Published Australian delivery rates:
- Australian Yacht Deliveries: $650 a day for preparation, plus $5 to $15 per nautical mile depending on the vessel, plus crew travel of $1,500 to $3,500 and fuel. Their worked example is a 15 m yacht over 600 nm in six days for $7,500 excluding fuel.
- Blue Water Sailing School: $700 a day plus GST for a skipper and one crew, including their travel and provisioning, covering 140 to 200 nm a day on the east coast.
- Others quote per delivery, typically half up front plus expenses, with the owner’s insurance in force for the trip.
Whichever way she goes, the pre-departure list is the same: insurance cruising range confirmed in writing for NSW waters, EPIRB registration current, life raft in date, fuel range checked against the longest leg with a third in hand, spares for impellers, belts and filters, a watch-keeping plan for the overnight legs, AIS on, and the weather window agreed the night before.
What we do
Marine HQ prepares yachts for the run south and back: the pre-departure checks and sea trial, the insurance and registration paperwork, the fuel and spares, the passage plan with the bars marked, and a delivery skipper and crew when the owner would rather meet her in Sydney. While she is away her position, fuel and log are in the owner’s MyYacht app, and when she comes home the post-passage service is already booked. Call 0439 748 387 or email yachtsupport@marinehq.com.au and tell us when you want her at Rushcutters Bay.