Sai Kung Berthing Reality: Marina Cove and Hong Kong's Berth Shortage

If you want to keep a boat in Sai Kung, buyers generally have three routes: join the waiting list at a major yacht club (Hebe Haven Yacht Club, for example, runs a waiting list of roughly 5 years), buy a second-hand boat that comes with a berth or a club membership attached (the industry's most common shortcut), or use a public berthing option such as a typhoon shelter or a government mooring buoy (supply is tight, and we are happy to advise on the specific waiting arrangements in the Sai Kung district). On price, yacht club entrance fees generally run between HK$1,000,000 and HK$2,600,000, plus monthly fees of roughly HK$3,400 to HK$7,300. In second-hand transactions that include a berth or a membership, the transfer value of the berth is usually already priced into the boat, there is no separate published rate, and the actual figure depends on the individual agreement. This structural gap is exactly why, in Sai Kung, choosing the right berthing solution matters to a buyer just as much as choosing the right boat.

To understand why a Sai Kung berth is so valuable, start with the citywide numbers.

Marine Department data shows the number of licensed Class IV pleasure vessels has risen steadily over the past decade: 7,920 in 2012, 9,748 at the end of 2016, and 12,553 by 2023, up again from 11,767 in 2021 (info.gov.hk, Legislative Council question, January 2024). Total berth supply has come nowhere near keeping pace — the figure the market usually quotes is "roughly 12,500 boats versus roughly 4,300 berths" (HKFP, October 2025).

This gap did not appear overnight. A 2017 Legislative Council question (info.gov.hk) shows the government's own projections already flashing a warning: in 2017, typhoon shelter berthing demand was 544.2 hectares against a supply of 624.3 hectares, a surplus of 80.1 hectares; but by 2030, demand was forecast to rise to 629.7 hectares against a supply of only 636.4 hectares, shrinking the surplus to just 6.7 hectares. The government's conclusion at the time was that supply would be "sufficient to meet demand up to 2030".

By 2024, the official line had quietly shifted to a new formulation — "the latest assessment shows berth supply is sufficient up to 2035". What happened in between to push that deadline back by 5 years has not been explained in public records. For a prospective buyer, that shift in language is itself a signal: the official promise that "there are enough berths" gets re-examined every few years.

Hong Kong's 9 yacht clubs provide roughly 2,280 private berths across 12 locations, with essentially no vacancies and permanent waiting lists (LegCo / Marine Department paper). Of the private mooring licences issued by the Marine Department (that is, buoys laid by individuals or organisations themselves), 857 are open-ended licences issued before 2018, while new applications have been frozen since 1 January 2021 and have yet to reopen.

That supply-demand structure has bred a grey market.

The Grey Market: Derelict Boats Holding Berths, Cash-Only Trading

A November 2023 report by Ta Kung Wen Wei Media (original article) exposed a common practice in Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter: burnt-out or written-off "dead boats" are used as fixed "buoys" to hold a typhoon shelter berth, with the space on either side quietly sublet to yachts or day-charter boats. Keeping a dead boat licensed costs only a few hundred Hong Kong dollars a year, but the berths on either side can rent for HK$20,000 to HK$32,000 a month, and as much as HK$50,000 to HK$70,000 in peak season — the trade calls it "one towing six or seven", meaning a single dead boat can tie up six or seven yachts paying rent at the same time. Every transaction is settled in cash, with no receipts and no contracts, and one month's notice is all it takes to end a tenancy. The Marine Department's response is that a vessel obstructing a fairway can be fined HK$5,000, but legislator Steven Ho has said bluntly that the government "can only respond with limited capability".

The point here is not moral judgement but a structural fact: in Hong Kong, a berth is itself a scarce asset. A licensed berth in a real location is valuable enough to sustain an underground rental market. That understanding is the key background for reading the legitimate second-hand transactions discussed below, where the boat comes with a berth — buyers pay a premium for a boat "with berth included" not out of convenience, but because the thing itself has real value.

There is movement on the supply side too, and it is worth watching. The Airport Authority plans to build the "Skytopia" yacht bay in the airport city, with phase one completed in 2028 and more than 500 berths once fully built out, around 250 of them for superyachts over 30 metres (SCMP). Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter also has a HK$20.3 billion expansion plan targeting completion by the end of 2030, providing around 200 yacht berths (Epoch Times, May 2026). But this new supply only arrives gradually from 2028 to 2031 onwards — too far off to help anyone buying today.

Berthing in Hong Kong falls into roughly three systems, and they differ completely in how they work, how they charge, and whether they can be transferred.

For most prospective buyers, only two routes are realistic: queue for a club (3–5 years is not unusual), or pick a second-hand boat that comes with a berth or a membership and skip the queue entirely. Which system actually applies in Sai Kung is covered in the next section. (For a side-by-side table of entrance fees and monthly fees at each club, plus a step-by-step breakdown of the transfer process, see our dedicated guide The Complete Guide to Buying a Second-Hand Yacht in Hong Kong; for annual ownership costs beyond berthing, see What Does It Really Cost to Run a Boat for a Year?.)

Sai Kung is one of Hong Kong's most concentrated yacht berthing communities, built around two locations — Marina Cove (匡湖居) and Hebe Haven Yacht Club (HHYC).

Marina Cove

Marina Cove sits at 380 Hiram's Highway, Hebe Haven. Developed by Henderson and occupied from 1985, it is an integrated development combining a private residential estate with a marina: 6 phases, 465 blocks and 535 residential units. The marina itself offers around 360 wet berths, able to take vessels up to 100 feet, plus dockside storage for speedboats and runabouts and a hardstand for routine maintenance. Clubhouse facilities are comprehensive, including Chinese and Western restaurants, a residents' clubhouse, swimming pool, gym, shopping centre and tennis courts (sources: Centaline, marinacove.org.hk).

The Sun Yachts office is on the ground floor of Marina Cove Shopping Centre, which means this marina community is the berthing environment we know best day to day. Do note, though, that Marina Cove is a private residential estate with a marina rather than a standalone commercial yacht club — how exactly berths are tied to the property (townhouse or unit), whether a transfer requires approval from the owners' incorporation, and whether there is an open market price are all practical operational details. We would be glad to discuss them with you directly.

Hebe Haven Yacht Club

Hebe Haven Yacht Club sits in a natural harbour in the middle of the Sai Kung peninsula, sheltered on three sides by land. It offers 53 dedicated walk-on-walk-off berths for vessels from 12 to 18 metres, all with power and water. The club's membership structure is clearly tiered (Cadet, Junior, Associate I/II), but every berth type at present — marina berth, swing mooring, hardstand and racking — is full, and the membership waiting list runs about 5 years (HHYC official site). The club also states plainly that it does not accept membership applications with a commercial element.

That "5-year wait" is precisely why "membership included" has become a genuine selling point in the second-hand market in Sai Kung and across Hong Kong. A buyer starting from scratch should expect to wait 5 years; buying a boat where the membership transfers with it can, in principle, skip that queue entirely (the transfer itself still needs club approval — see the next section for details).

"Berthing arrangements" is one of Sun Yachts' four core services, alongside sales, charter and brokerage. In practice, "membership or berth transferred together with the boat" is a common structure in our inventory. Here are a few real examples:

• 2005 Fairline Squadron 74, asking HK$7,500,000, offered with "membership plus a 90-foot berth transferred"
• 2011 Astondoa 44 Fly, asking HK$2,850,000, offered with "a 55-foot yacht club berth plus membership"
• 2022 Jeanneau Merry Fisher 895 Sport, asking HK$1,380,000, "sold with a yacht club berth and pontoon"
• 2004 Silverton 36 Convertible, asking HK$1,380,000, "yacht club membership can be transferred"

The commercial logic is straightforward: the seller transfers their yacht club membership or berth to the buyer along with the boat, and the buyer skips the most painful step of all — waiting for a membership. The seller benefits too, because a boat that comes with a berth holds its asking price rather than being discounted as "just a hull". Whether a membership transfer actually requires case-by-case club approval, whether a berth follows the person or the boat (that is, whether it lapses automatically on a change of owner), and what administrative steps a transfer involves are all internal club rules, and different clubs may handle them differently. We would be glad to discuss the details with you directly.

For a prospective buyer, this structure points to a practical strategy: rather than treating "buying a boat" and "finding a berth" as two separate problems, look first at inventory boats that already come with a berth or a membership — one transaction solves both, and it sidesteps the shortage described above.

Beyond the concentration of berthing facilities, the water itself is a reason buyers base themselves here. The Sai Kung peninsula has Hong Kong's longest coastline and the greatest number of outlying islands, with hills, country parks, uninhabited islands, white sand beaches, cliffs and sea-eroded landforms all within reach. The area is also the Sai Kung Volcanic Rock Region of the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark, which joined the Global Geoparks Network in 2011 (HKTB).

Famous geological features include the hexagonal volcanic rock columns at Po Pin Chau, the "pineapple bun rock" and tombolo at Sharp Island, and the bell-shaped arch at the southern tip of High Island. A typical two-hour cruise already covers multiple geological wonders across Sharp Island, High Island and Basalt Island, and arriving by sea is by far the best way to appreciate them. Put another way, Sai Kung is one of the rare places in Hong Kong where you can step aboard in the morning and tour the entire geopark in two hours — and that geographic advantage is what explains the concentration of yacht clubs and private berth demand in this stretch of water.