Superyacht marina boosts Qld jobs

Queensland's Gold Coast is now the proud home of Australia’s largest industrial marina, earmarked to become the epicentre of superyacht production in Australia.

The $55 million Gold Coast City Marina & Shipyard will create 500 jobs and inject investment dollars into the Queensland economy.
Gold Coast City Marina & Shipyard occupies a 15-hectare site in Waterway Drive, Coomera located in the Gold Coast Marine Precinct (behind Dreamworld theme park). Construction commenced in May 1998 with the creation of the marina's lake followed by the dry storage facility, hardstand, administration building, leasehold factories and the development of Gold Coast Marine Park -a strata-titled factory enclave.

One of the 50m factories is being converted to a paint booth to ensure no overspray will affect other boats and the existing factories have been in full swing refitting craft from runabouts to superyachts. The largest superyacht under refit at the marina is My Way, a 120ft catamaran, and two 100ft superyachts have been built at the marina and shipyard in the past 12 months. It is envisaged the facility will eventually be able to handle craft up to 500 tonnes.

Thus far the dry storage shed, which holds boats up to 10m, is at 95 per cent occupancy while the 18m refit sheds have 90 per cent occupancy, the marina and shipyard is running at 95 per cent and the hardstand at 60 per cent, indicating a substantial amount of growth in the area.