Hampton Harbour Boat & Sailing Club

Sailing waters

Hampton Harbour exists because of a causeway: the link built between East Intercourse Island and the mainland created a sheltered basin within the Port of Dampier, and that basin is the club's front yard. The water is protected and warm, the sailing year-round, and the backdrop is the 42-island Dampier Archipelago — a cruising, fishing and diving ground of genuine grandeur roughly twenty kilometres from Karratha. One caution applies to everyone on this water, from yacht crews to paddlers: strong tidal currents run through the archipelago, and the management authorities urge care.

The club's footprint on the harbour is unusually deep. With the Department of Transport and the Shire of Roebourne, it shares responsibility for the harbour's jetties, refuelling facilities and boat ramps, and a public boat ramp sits right at the club. At the eastern end of the harbour, a small marina — first constructed for port service vessels — is today operated by the club and provides about 33 pens for recreational yachts and other vessels. That combination of ramp, fuel, pens and clubhouse makes 17 The Esplanade the effective centre of recreational boating in Dampier.

The town's origins explain the club's scale. Dampier itself dates only to the 1960s, when Hamersley Iron created it to export the iron ore mined at Tom Price and Paraburdoo, and the town was named for the buccaneer William Dampier; the population that grew with the port needed recreation, and the harbour supplied it. For visitors today, the clubhouse verandah offers what The West Australian called a great view and welcome — sunset over the harbour, with the archipelago strung along the horizon.