Moorings in St Austell Bay

St Austell Bay is a bay on the south coast of Cornwall, running between Gribbin Head in the east and Black Head in the west, with Charlestown, Porthpean, Par and Polkerris on its shores. This coastal area also takes in Mevagissey, about five miles south of St Austell, which faces east across Mevagissey Bay just beyond Black Head. A survey in 2023 found a seagrass meadow of about 359 hectares in the bay, one of the largest in the UK.

Mevagissey is where most of the moorings are. The harbour has been run by the Mevagissey Harbour Trustees since the eighteenth century and became a charitable trust in 1988. It has an inner harbour between the East and West Quays, built after an Act of 1775, and an outer harbour added in 1888, with a lighthouse on the south breakwater. It is the second biggest fishing port in Cornwall, and pleasure boats share it with the working fleet, which takes priority.

The inner harbour dries, and boats there lie on fore and aft moorings laid and maintained by the harbour staff, taking the ground safely at low water. Seasonal outhaul moorings for small boats are available from April to September. The outer harbour never dries and is where visiting boats moor, since visitors may not enter the inner harbour and anchoring inside the harbour is banned. The harbour is well sheltered except in easterly winds. In summer a passenger ferry runs to Fowey.

The other harbours on the bay are quite different. Charlestown has an impounded wet dock behind gates, first fitted in 1799 and widened in 1971, and since 1994 it has been owned by Square Sail as a base for its tall ships; china clay exports ended there in 2000. Par harbour is operated by Imerys and saw commercial shipping largely stop in 2007. Pentewan's basin is now cut off from the sea by silt, and Polkerris has a small curved quay dating from 1775.

St Austell Bay moorings are therefore mainly the drying inner harbour moorings and outer harbour visitor moorings at Mevagissey. The deep water harbour at Fowey lies just east of Gribbin Head and has its own coastal area.