Sailing in December

December is a month of two halves. The first two weeks are quiet, warm and good value in the south. From about the middle of the month everything changes, and by Christmas the southern charter fleet is fully committed and priced accordingly.

The national picture

Southern waters are in their November to April season and improving weekly. Tasmania opens its December to March window for longer expeditions. The tropical north is in the wet and inside the official cyclone season, which runs 1 November to 30 April.

In their window

Tasmania begins properly. December is the first month the Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour expedition window is realistically open, with long daylight and the best chance of a settled passage around the south-west. The D Entrecasteaux Channel and Bruny is excellent, and Hobart and the Derwent is in its best month.

New South Wales is at full season. Sydney Harbour is warm, the nor-easter is reliable, and Pittwater and Broken Bay and the Hawkesbury and Cowan Creek are both busy and good.

Melbourne and Port Phillip, the Gippsland Lakes, Adelaide and Gulf St Vincent and Fremantle, Rottnest and Carnac are all in season, with sea breezes building on warm afternoons and southerly changes arriving abruptly.

Brisbane and Moreton Bay is hot with afternoon storms but sailable.

Not their window

The tropics are out. The Whitsundays, Cairns, Port Douglas and Magnetic Island and Townsville all carry heat, humidity, thunderstorms, stingers and cyclone exposure. Darwin Harbour is in the monsoon and most operators are not running. The Kimberley is closed. See weather and seasons.

Price and availability

The first half of December is one of the better value fortnights of the southern year. The second half is the most expensive period in Australian chartering.

Two things drive it. Australian school holidays create demand peaks and the Christmas and January break is the longest. And the Sydney to Hobart starts on 26 December, which fills Sydney Harbour with racing boats and spectators, takes crews and vessels out of circulation, and then fills Hobart for the following week, on the water and ashore.

If you want a boat between 20 December and the end of the month anywhere in the south, book it a year ahead. If you are flexible, take the first ten days of December instead and pay far less for nearly the same weather. See costs and the bareboat guide.

Better in December than any other month

The Sydney to Hobart start on 26 December, seen from a boat. It is the single best spectacle available from an Australian deck: a big offshore fleet leaving a crowded harbour on a summer afternoon, with hundreds of spectator craft and a genuine atmosphere. Operators run dedicated charters for it, exclusion zones apply and are enforced, and you need to book many months ahead. Nothing else in the calendar compares, and it happens once a year on one afternoon.

See charter types, the operator directory, the region directory and safety and commercial vessel rules for how spectator vessel rules work on the day.