yachts
p. 65 · Read in the full issue
Vast new plan for yacht harbor on Gold Coast
No less vigorous and political a figure than Queensland’s premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, has lent his name to a grand new yacht race, scheduled to be run for the first time from Sydney to the Gold Coast in 1986.
The race will be worth $50,000 in sponsorship money and is ex pected to be the fore-runner of many large-scale boating events which, its organisers hope, may eventually rank with the annual Sydney-Hobart, Sydney-Suva, and other such classics.
The inaugural race in 1986 will be run by the Sydney-based Cruis ing Yacht Club of Australia which held the first Sydney-Hobart race in 1945 and, in July, 1965, was sponsor for the first Australian chal lenge for the Admiral’s Cup.
The success of the new Bayview Harbor race depends upon sta bilisation of the Southport Bar, a notorious, shifting slab of sand which so far has spoiled what should be a magnificent yacht and boating harbor close to the bustle of the Gold Coast tourist area.
Sponsors of the 1986 race are the developers of Bayview Harbor who include the Queensland-based McMaster-Suares Group, and Jar dine Matheson, of Hong Kong.
Bayview Harbor will be Australia’s biggest and most modern resi dential/marina complex and will feature four luxury tower blocks of apartments, totalling 320 units, fronting the Southport Broadwater, eight km north of Surfers Paradise.
Two marinas, an outer harbor which is already open, and a middle harbor yet to be built, have direct access to the Broadwater and can hold 200 boats.
The site is of 2.2 hectares and, in addition to the condominium apart ment blocks will have a restaurant and function centre called the Clip per Club, tennis courts, swimming pools, gyms, spas, saunas and other facilities.
Total cost of the complex will exceed $ll5 million.
The first tower, of 35 floors,is now nearing completion with apart ments selling for between $185,000 and $325,000. Other blocks will be
smaller, with apartments of different layout; some very large and costing close to half a million dollars. Prices include a marina berth.
The marinas will be run by the Bayview Harbor Yacht Squadron, restricted in membership to apart ment owners. Patron is Jock Stur rock, twice skipper of an Australian America’s Cup challenger.
Stabilisation of the infamous Southport Bar at the mouth of the Nerang River, and doorway to the Broadwater, will cost the Queens land Government about $33 mil lion. It will involve construction of two large walls out to sea from the northern end of the Southport Spit, and a wave-break island just inside the mouth.
According to Bill Laver, chairman of the Gold Coast Waterways Authority, the entrance and its sand bar has migrated several kilometres to the north over the last century and is still moving, chopping away the tip of South Stradbroke Island on the northern side of the bar. If unchecked the entrance would con tinue northwards, he said, de
stroying fish habitats and endanger ing waterfront suburbs along the western foreshore.
The stabilisation project began 10 years ago when Delft Hydraulics Laboratories of Holland made a detailed study of Gold Coast ero sion problems. The design was then developed in laboratories commis sioned by the Queensland Depart ment of Harbors and Marine be tween 1973 and 1978.
The walls will be built from dry land at the northern end of the Southport Spit and about 500 metres south from the existing entrance. The southern wall will jut 500 metres out to sea from the present high water mark, while the northern wall will run 300 metres.
Both will point north at 15 degrees to provide protection from the predominant south-east seas, mak ing the entrance safer for naviga tion.
The walls will stand 300 metres apart and the new channel will be maintained at 6 metres depth at low water. About one million tonnes of quarry rock will be used to build the walls.
The wave-break island just inside the bar will be 900 metres long and 300 metres wide, built up of dredged sand, reinforced by small rock walls at each end.
Artist’s impression of Queensland’s new Bayview Harbor project, showing apartment blocks fronting Southport Broadwater, seawalls and a wave-break island.