Sydney Harbour, By the Hour

Most harbour cities give you a waterfront. Sydney gives you a cruising ground in the middle of the city, deep water, forty beaches, and a skyline that does its best work from two hundred metres offshore. The mistake visitors make is treating it as scenery. It is a venue.

The format

Not every occasion needs a week. Sydney is where the hourly charter earns its place: M/Y Sea Raes boards up to thirty-four guests for an afternoon, a sunset, or an evening, crewed, catered and run to the same standard as a weekly charter, from $2,000 an hour. For a private week on the harbour and beyond, Lumir takes ten guests in Heesen comfort at thirty-one knots when you want Pittwater for lunch.

The run

The classic afternoon: board at your wharf, swing past the Opera House while the champagne is still cold, anchor off Shark Island or in Athol Bight under the zoo for a swim and lunch, then idle the western reaches past Cockatoo Island as the light goes gold. New Year's Eve, Boxing Day for the start of the Hobart race, Vivid from the water, the harbour calendar is the event calendar.

Every Sydney milestone looks better from the water. The harbour is not the backdrop; it is the room.

The details

Wharf pick-ups can be arranged across the harbour, catering runs from canapés to a seated dinner, and the crew handles the run of the evening so the host gets to be a guest. Corporate days, birthdays, proposals, tell us the occasion and the hour count, and we will shape the rest. Start at the enquiry desk.