Port Hedland Spoilbank Marina (Pirra Pirra)

About the marina

For a town that moves more iron ore than anywhere else on earth, Port Hedland waited a long time for somewhere decent to keep a tinnie. The wait ended on 29 November 2024 when the $187.5 million Spoilbank Marina opened on the harbour-side spoil ground just west of the town centre, delivered by Pilbara Ports with the Department of Transport, DevelopmentWA, BHP and the Town of Port Hedland. The project carries a second name, Pirra Pirra, meaning seashells in the Kariyarra language, chosen with the Kariyarra Aboriginal Corporation to mark the Traditional Owners' long connection to this stretch of waterfront. Locals had been asking for a marina at the Spoilbank since at least 2012, when planning first began, and the finished precinct deliberately goes well beyond boat storage: twin breakwaters carry a public walking path, a waterfront promenade links turfed event spaces, shaded picnic and barbecue areas, public art and a cultural gathering space, and a custom boardwalk ties the site back toward Cemetery Beach and the West End. More than 55 per cent of the project spend went to local and Aboriginal businesses. For recreational skippers the practical gift is separation: the marina basin has its own entrance channel, so trailer boats and pen holders no longer share water with the bulk carrier traffic that made launching in the harbour a calculated risk. It functions as a town square as much as a boat harbour, which is exactly how a community that campaigned for it for decades treats it. The marina basin was conceived within a 40-hectare foreshore masterplan that allows for growth well beyond the initial 22 pens, and the dredged navigation channel linking the basin to deep water was one of the largest marine contracts let in the Pilbara that decade.

Berthing & shoreside services

The core berthing offer is 22 cyclone-rated floating boat pens with walkways, a deliberate specification for a coastline that cops tropical cyclones most summers. Pen occupancy is charged under the Jetties Regulations at an annual rate of $716.50 per metre of pen length for recreational, fishing, tourism and government vessels, and $931.45 per metre for service vessels; casual daily berthing is also available at the published standard rates, and prospective pen holders apply through the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure, which manages the facility. Alongside the pens sits a four-lane recreational boat ramp that is usable at all tides, a genuine improvement on older local ramps, though the department advises skippers to favour high water because low-tide launching and retrieval can be slippery going. A dedicated maintenance hardstand gives owners somewhere to put a hull up for antifouling and mechanical work, backed by generous trailer and vehicle parking. Fishing is built into the design rather than tolerated: a two-storey fishing jetty and fish-cleaning facilities serve both shore anglers and boats coming home with a catch. What the marina does not yet have is just as worth knowing: there is no fuel berth, pump-out facility or chandlery advertised on site, so skippers should arrive fuelled and plan waste disposal accordingly. Public amenities, the promenade and an events lawn sit within the precinct, and a $4 million Lotterywest-funded adventure playground is the next addition, run by the Town of Port Hedland. Security of the basin comes from its engineered breakwaters and the separate entrance channel rather than gated infrastructure.

Local context in YouSail

This is directory context, not navigation advice. Check current charts, notices and official boating resources before passage.

Approaching Spoilbank is refreshingly simple compared with the old arrangement. The marina has its own dredged entrance channel, cut as part of a contract that removed up to 190,000 cubic metres of material, so small craft stay clear of the shipping channel where 300-metre ore carriers queue for the berths of the world's biggest bulk export port. That said, this is still a working harbour under vessel traffic management, and courtesy and lookouts apply whenever you cross toward open water. The Pilbara tidal range is serious, commonly seven metres or more on springs, so the all-tide ramp earns its keep, and the advice to launch near high water is worth heeding after rain or algae build-up. Cyclone season runs roughly November to April; the pens are cyclone-rated but owners should still have a vessel plan when warnings are issued. The fishing that draws most people here is first rate: blue and threadfin salmon, queenfish, trevally and mangrove jack in the creeks and along the foreshore, crabbing in the shallows, and Spanish mackerel and sailfish for those heading wider. From October to March flatback turtles nest on nearby Cemetery Beach, within walking distance along the new boardwalk, and humpback whales pass close inshore through winter. Port Hedland itself is a fly-in fly-out town with full provisioning at South Hedland's shopping centres, marine mechanics used to commercial deadlines, and a courtesy culture shaped by the port. The precinct's sunset-facing lawns have quickly become the town's favoured evening spot. Timing matters here as much as anywhere on the Pilbara coast: arrive on a rising tide, keep VHF discipline near the port approaches, and the whole exercise is straightforward even for trailer-boat crews new to the region.