When's the best time to charter in Tasmania?

December to March, the Australian summer, when the D'Entrecasteaux Channel and the east coast anchorages are at their calmest. Tasmania sits inside the Roaring Forties, the band of unbroken westerly wind between 40° and 50° south, so a settled forecast still needs watching — especially on the run around the south-west corner to Port Davey.

What's the nearest airport?

Hobart Airport (HBA), at Cambridge around 17km/20 minutes from the city. There is no large stand-alone FBO in the Archerfield mould — private and business aircraft are handled through the main terminal and local ground handlers, with light aircraft based next door at Cambridge Aerodrome.

What's the signature experience?

Either a tender run up the Derwent to MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art built into a sandstone cliff at Berriedale, or — on a yacht and a season set up for it — the passage around the south-west corner to Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour, one of the few large wilderness estuaries left anywhere with no road in.

Do you need a permit to land in Tasmania's national parks?

Yes — a Tasmania Parks pass (day, holiday or annual) covers landings in Freycinet National Park for Wineglass Bay, Southwest National Park for Port Davey, and South Bruny National Park. Foreign-flagged yachts also need to lodge a pre-arrival report with Australian Border Force and biosecurity 96 hours out; Hobart is a designated first port of entry.

The Pacific & Australasia

Tasmania

The Roaring Forties keep most yachts well clear of this island — which is exactly why Hobart's working waterfront, the sheltered D'Entrecasteaux Channel and the wilderness anchorage of Port Davey reward the ones that make the trip.

Tasmania is compact by comparison with the deep south's other cruising grounds, and serious in a way most of the Pacific isn't. Hobart is the hub — a working port that doubles as the finish line for one of ocean racing's great institutions — and everything else sits within a few days' reach: the sheltered water and food trail of the D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Bruny Island to the south, the pink-granite curve of Wineglass Bay up the east coast, and, around the island's south-west corner and reached only on a proper weather window, the roadless wilderness of Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour. The season is short and precise: December to March, inside the band of Southern Ocean wind sailors have called the Roaring Forties since the age of sail.

“West of Port Davey there is no land before Argentina; south of it, none before Antarctica.”

Signature anchorages

Five stops, one short coastline and one long, serious detour — this is a cruising ground measured in weather windows as much as nautical miles.

Hobart — Constitution Dock, Kings Pier Marina & Sullivans CoveThe working waterfront and the trip's natural start and finish. The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race crosses the line off Battery Point after its Boxing Day start and rafts up at Constitution Dock — casual stays only, its historic bascule bridge opening three times a day. Kings Pier Marina and Elizabeth Street Pier, where yachts to around 44m have berthed, sit either side.
D'Entrecasteaux ChannelAbout 60km (32nm) of sheltered water between Bruny Island and the Tasmanian mainland, surveyed in 1792 by the French admiral it's named for while he searched for the lost La Pérouse expedition. Barnes Bay and Quarantine Bay hold good in most conditions; the channel is also the route south to Recherche Bay, Australia's southernmost anchorage of any real size.
Bruny IslandAdventure Bay, on the ocean side, was the first landfall many Southern Ocean explorers made — Cook watered here in 1777, and Bligh planted apple trees in 1788, finding them still growing when he returned in 1792. The draw today is ashore at the island's north end: Get Shucked's oyster shed, Bruny Island Cheese Co. and the Bruny Island House of Whisky, all a short tender-and-taxi run from a Barnes Bay anchorage.
Port Davey & Bathurst HarbourInside the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and reachable only by sea, on foot, or by light aircraft into the Melaleuca airstrip — no road comes within a hundred kilometres. The Breaksea Islands screen the narrow Bathurst Channel from the Southern Ocean swell; inside, a rare tannin-stained freshwater layer sits over salt water, with anchorages the length of Bathurst Harbour. A serious passage around South West Cape for a capable yacht on a proper weather window — not a casual detour.
Wineglass Bay & FreycinetA curling white crescent below the pink-granite Hazards, feldspar-tinted peaks that gave the bay a regular place on world's-best-beach lists. Open to the east; shelter builds as the wind swings west, with Schouten Island and Coles Bay the fallback anchorages when the swell's up. Saffire Freycinet sits ashore behind Coles Bay.

The scene

One race, one museum, one mountain — the three fixed points of the Hobart skyline.

Ocean race · Dec–Jan

The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

Around 630 nautical miles from Sydney Harbour's Boxing Day start, down the New South Wales coast, across Bass Strait and up the Derwent to the Constitution Dock finish. First run in 1945; the monohull line-honours record, set by LDV Comanche in 2017, stands at a day, nine hours and change.

Museum

MONA

The Museum of Old and New Art, built into a sandstone cliff at Berriedale, opened in 2011 as the largest privately funded museum in the country. Its own wharf sits about twenty minutes upriver by tender, or reach it on the museum's own ferry from Brooke Street Pier.

Landmark

kunanyi / Mount Wellington

The 1,271m peak standing over the whole cruising ground, dual-named since 2013 for the Mouheneener people's palawa kani (the reconstructed Tasmanian Aboriginal language) alongside the Duke of Wellington. A sealed road runs to the summit lookout, weather permitting, for the view back down over Sullivans Cove and the Channel.

Table & stay ashore

No Michelin guide reaches this far south yet — the Good Food Guide and Gourmet Traveller are the record here instead.

Restaurant

Frank

On the water at 1 Franklin Wharf, steps from Kings Pier Marina — an Argentinian parrilla working a wood-and-coal grill, built around whatever Tasmanian produce and seafood the day brings in, from Robbins Island wagyu to Tasmanian Oyster Co. shellfish.

Restaurant

Fico

Two hats in the Good Food Guide and Gourmet Traveller's Tasmanian Restaurant of the Year for 2021/22, on Macquarie Street a short walk from the waterfront; its wine list took the state title the same year.

Bruny Island

The island food trail

Get Shucked's drive-through oyster bar, Bruny Island Cheese Co.'s dairy and the Bruny Island House of Whisky sit within a few minutes of each other at the island's north end — a tender-and-taxi afternoon rather than a booking.

Hotel

MACq 01

Hobart's storytelling hotel, on Sullivans Cove's historic Macquarie Wharf a few minutes' walk from Kings Pier Marina; 114 rooms, each built around a Tasmanian character, and the Old Wharf Restaurant on the water.

Hotel

The Tasman

A Luxury Collection hotel across three eras — an 1847 sandstone hospital wing, a 1940s Art Deco block and a new pavilion — a short walk from the waterfront; Peppina is its flagship dining room.

Lodge

Saffire Freycinet

Twenty suites above Great Oyster Bay, behind Coles Bay and a tender ride from the Wineglass Bay anchorage; all-inclusive, and the closest thing the east coast has to a private landing.

A week, sketched

Day 1

Hobart & the Derwent

Embark at Sullivans Cove — Kings Pier Marina or Elizabeth Street Pier — and tender up the Derwent to MONA before the day boats arrive. Back to the Cove for dinner at Franklin, on the water at Franklin Wharf.

Day 2

Down the D'Entrecasteaux Channel to Bruny Island

Run the sheltered channel to Barnes Bay; ashore for Get Shucked, Bruny Island Cheese Co. and the House of Whisky, then round to Adventure Bay, where Cook and Bligh both watered after the Southern Ocean crossing.

Day 3

The Huon & Recherche Bay

South past Cygnet and Dover to Recherche Bay, the last easy shelter before the open coast — a provisioning stop and a weather-window day, where the forecast decides when the boat moves again, not the schedule.

Day 4

Around South West Cape to Port Davey

A big-water passage day on the chosen window: round South West Cape and turn north past the Breaksea Islands into the shelter of the Bathurst Channel.

Day 5

Bathurst Harbour

A full day inside Port Davey's wilderness estuary — the Bathurst Channel's tannin-dark water, Bramble Cove, and a tender run to Melaleuca for the airstrip and the walkers' huts at the end of the South Coast Track.

Day 6

The passage home

Back around South West Cape on the next settled window, running for Recherche Bay and the shelter of the Channel by evening.

Day 7

Return to Hobart

North through the D'Entrecasteaux and up the Derwent to Sullivans Cove, kunanyi / Mount Wellington filling the windscreen the whole way in.

Ten days, unhurried

Day 1

Hobart

Embark at Sullivans Cove — Kings Pier Marina or Elizabeth Street Pier — tender up the Derwent to MONA, and dinner at Franklin on Franklin Wharf.

Day 2

Bruny Island

Down the D'Entrecasteaux Channel; Get Shucked, Bruny Island Cheese Co. and the House of Whisky ashore, Adventure Bay in the afternoon — Cook watered here in 1777 — and the night in Quarantine Bay.

Day 3

Recherche Bay

South past Cygnet and Dover to the last easy shelter before the open coast. From here the forecast runs the schedule: the boat rounds the corner when the window opens, not before.

Day 4

Around South West Cape

The big-water day, taken on the chosen window: round the cape and north past the Breaksea Islands into the flat water of the Bathurst Channel.

Days 5–6

Bathurst Harbour, without a clock

Two full days where the week allows one: Bramble Cove, the tannin-dark water lying over salt, Mount Rugby standing over all of it, and the tender run in to Melaleuca — the airstrip, the walkers' huts, and Claytons Corner, the harbour's one old homestead.

Day 7

The passage back

Round South West Cape on the next settled window, running for Recherche Bay and the shelter of the Channel by evening.

Day 8

Hobart, resupplied

North up the Channel and the Derwent to Sullivans Cove; the summit road up kunanyi / Mount Wellington if the weather allows, reprovisioning below, and dinner at Fico on Macquarie Street.

Day 9

The Tasman Peninsula

Down the Derwent past the Iron Pot light and east under the peninsula's dolerite — Cape Raoul's organ-pipe columns, Cape Pillar sheer to the water, Tasman Island's light off the corner — into Fortescue Bay for the night.

Day 10

Wineglass Bay

A morning's run north past Schouten Island to the anchorage under the Hazards' pink granite. Hold the bay for a last night, or land at Coles Bay — Saffire Freycinet sits just behind it — for the two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Hobart.

Three days, concentrated

Day 1

Hobart & the Derwent

Embark at Kings Pier Marina; MONA by tender before the day boats, an evening on the waterfront, dinner at Franklin.

Day 2

Bruny Island

The sheltered channel to Barnes Bay and the food trail ashore — oysters, cheese, whisky — then round to Adventure Bay to idle under Fluted Cape's cliffs by tender. Night in Quarantine Bay.

Day 3

Return to Hobart

Back up the Channel and the Derwent, kunanyi / Mount Wellington dead ahead the whole run home; alongside at Sullivans Cove by midday to disembark.

SeasonDec–Mar (Australian summer)

Water temp~13–17°C

Prevailing windRoaring Forties westerlies

Superyacht marinaPrince of Wales Bay · Hobart

Sydney–Hobart race~630nm, Boxing Day start

Pair with

The Pacific & AustralasiaSydney & New South Wales The Pacific & AustralasiaNew Zealand & the Bay of Islands The Expedition SouthPatagonia & the Chilean Fjords

When to go

December to March, the Australian summer — the D'Entrecasteaux Channel and the east coast are at their calmest, and the light holds past nine. Tasmania sits inside the Roaring Forties, the belt of unbroken westerly wind between 40° and 50° south that gives the Southern Ocean its reputation; a settled forecast can still turn, especially on the exposed run to Port Davey around the south-west corner. The water stays cool even at the height of summer — this is not a destination for lingering in the sea.

Anchorages

Hobart & Sullivans Cove
D'Entrecasteaux Channel
Bruny Island
Port Davey & Bathurst Harbour
Wineglass Bay & Freycinet

Nearest airports

Hobart Airport (HBA), at Cambridge about 17km/20 minutes from the city. There is no large stand-alone FBO (fixed-base operator, a private terminal for business aircraft) in the Archerfield or Jet Aviation mould; private and business aircraft are handled through the main terminal and local ground handlers. Light aircraft, including the charter flights into the Melaleuca airstrip for Port Davey, are based next door at Cambridge Aerodrome.

Marinas & berthing

Prince of Wales Bay Marina, on the Derwent's western shore about 10 minutes from the city, holds Tasmania's dedicated superyacht pontoon within a 350-berth marina. In Sullivans Cove itself, Kings Pier Marina and Elizabeth Street Pier take shorter stays — yachts to around 44m have berthed at Elizabeth Street Pier — alongside Constitution Dock, casual stays only. Beyond Hobart it's anchorage and tender country throughout: no marina infrastructure at Bruny, Port Davey or Wineglass Bay, and a local agent is the way to arrange anything larger than the CBD pontoons allow.

Permits & notes

Foreign-flagged yachts must lodge a pre-arrival report with Australian Border Force and biosecurity 96 hours out; Hobart is a designated first port of entry. Landing in the national parks around these anchorages — Freycinet for Wineglass Bay, Southwest National Park for Port Davey, South Bruny for the island's southern half — needs a Tasmania Parks pass, day, holiday or annual, bought online or at the visitor centres.