portsmouth yacht club moorings

Portsmouth/Kittery

43° 4' 25"N , 070° 42' 46"W

Portsmouth, NH

Last edited by:

• Charles Tarbell
• July 17, 2023

Maine , South Coast and Casco Bay

Photo: Charles Tarbell

When visiting the Portsmouth NH/Kittery, Maine area and the powerful Piscataqua River that separates the two states, one is struck by the diversity of the area. New Castle on the NH side is very quaint and historic and features the impressive Wentworth-by-the-Sea Resort and Marina.  Directly across the river is the equally quaint town of Kittery, Maine, which has a quality yacht yard as well as the imposing Portsmouth Naval Shipyard that refits nuclear submarines. Just up river is Portsmouth, NH, which accommodates ocean-going ships, a cosmopolitan downtown and rich historic sites such as Strawbery Banke. The region is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the settlement in 1623 this year.

Approach & Cautions

Photo: Whaleback Light, Walter Gaddis, Flickr

Coming from the south, between Gunboat Shoal bell buoy 1 and Kitts Rock 2KR whistle you will start to focus your approach to the harbor. The arch of the Piscataqua River Bridge (I-95), the lift towers of the Sarah Long (Rt. 1-Bypass) and Memorial (Rt. 1) bridges and the cranes of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard will be slightly left. Whaleback Lighthouse Fl (2) 10 s and R “2” are left to starboard.  Can “3” and a daymark on Stielman Rocks off New Castle beach are left to port. Inside C “3” is a yellow warning buoy and a University of New Hampshire experimental fish pen just under the watch tower of the USCG Portsmouth Harbor Station. Fort Point Lighthouse G is left to port.

From the north, Boon Island Lighthouse is the prominent offshore light. Inshore from this lighthouse, beware of the various marked rocks such as York Ledge, Murray’s Rock, Stone’s Rock and, closer to Portsmouth Harbor, The East (unmarked) and West Sisters and Kitt’s Rock (2KR) off Whaleback Lighthouse.

There are channel markers on the Kittery Point shore to center approaching ships in the middle of the channel.

Little Harbor: The harbor to the west of New Castle, northwest of Whaleback Lighthouse is protected by two offset breakwaters, the easterly breakwater being the outermost. Approaching, observe the can (1) and the nun (2) outside the breakwaters. There is a slight jog to the right and then left through the two breakwaters and then a narrow channel through the mooring field to the Safe Harbor Wentworth Marina . A sailboat should not go inland as the bridge (Rt. 1 Bypass) requires a four-hour window after a call to the State of New Hampshire Department of Transportation for a lift crew to arrive. There is not much inside that bridge of interest to a sailing vessel.

Click the chart to open Navionics

Not to be used for Navigation .

Docking, Anchorages, or Moorings

The most popular anchorage is just west of the mooring field at Pepperrell Cove, between Nun “4” and the western shore.

Moorings: As in most busy harbors, moorings may be in limited supply.

Call the Kittery Harbormaster (207) 451-0829, VHF Ch. 9 & 68, for Pepperell Cove mooring availability.

The Division of Ports and Harbors (603) 436-8500, regulates the moorings but doesn’t manage the moorings. One of their Harbormasters might be a place to start, (603) 231-6100 (Little Harbor) or (603) 944-0569 (Portsmouth).

The Yacht Clubs may have a limited number of guest moorings.

Portsmouth Y.C. : (603) 436-9877, Ch. 78. Moorings, reserved on Dockwa , are $45 and include launch service.

Kittery Point Y.C. : Ch. 68  (staffing and launch service is currently limited to race evenings–Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and weekends.)

Safe Harbor Kittery Point may have a few moorings in the Back Channel between Seavey Island (PNSY) and the Kittery shore. [email protected] (207) 439-9582. They can do repairs, rigging, painting, etc.

Piscataqua Marina 4 Island Ave., Kittery, offers transient slips and is about 1/2 mile from meat and produce markets, a restaurant, and a bakery . Dockmaster David can be reached at [email protected] , (207) 439-1661, or Ch. 9 or 13.

In Little Harbor, New Castle, NH, the Safe Harbor Wentworth by the Sea (603) 433-5050, Ch. 71, offers transient slips and there’s a restaurant next door.

Kittery Harbor Master 9 & 68 Kittery Point YC 68 Piscataqua Marina 9 & 13 Portsmouth Yacht Club 78 Safe Harbor Kittery Point 71 Safe Harbor Wentworth 71

Portsmouth Yacht Club Safe Harbor Wentworth

Piscataqua Marina Portsmouth Yacht Club Safe Harbor Kittery Point Safe Harbor Wentworth

ELECTRICITY

Piscataqua 30-100 amp Safe Harbor Kittery Point Safe Harbor Wentworth

Piscataqua Marina Safe Harbor Wentworth

Piscataqua Marina Safe Harbor Kittery Point Safe Harbor Wentworth

Safe Harbor Kittery Point Island Marine Service

Portsmouth Regional Hospital

MORE BOAT AMENITIES

Getting Ashore

Photo: Charlie Tarbell

There are no public dinghy docks on the New Hampshire side, but Pepperell Cove in Kittery Point, Maine, has a public dock.  Portsmouth Y.C. launch is available for $5 per person per ride (or included in the cost of their moorings).

Provisioning

Pepperell Cove, Kittery Point, ME has a small store with some provisions just up from the Town Dock. For more extensive provisions, two Market Baskets , a Hannaford offering delivery, a Whole Foods , and a Trader Joe’s would best be reached by friend, taxi or Uber.  Also best reached by taxi, there are a Home Depot and a Lowes in the area, a West Marine (Rt. 1, NH), a Hamilton Marine (Rt. 1 BP, ME), Kittery Trading Post (Rt. 1, ME), and New England Marine (Rt. 16 N, NH).

Photo: Courtesy of Salt Restaurant

The Great Island Eatery at Wentworth Marina is open 11:00 to 8:00, Wednesday through Sunday. The Wentworth Hotel has some fine dining options including the Salt , (603) 373-6566. There is no dinghy tie up. In Pepperrell Cove, Kittery Point, ME, just up from the Town Dock, is a small complex of options including the Bistro 1828, The Ski Club and Frisbee’s Wharf. There are numerous other dining options in the Kittery/Portsmouth area within reach of an easy taxi ride.

Photo: Courtesy of Fort McClary State Historic Site

Wood Island Lifesaving Station , Kittery Point, ME, is newly restored and well worth a look.

New Castle village is quaint, and there’s a self-guided tour of the island.

Fort Foster , Gerrish Island, ME, just inside Wood Island, has a beach landing at the town park and is dog friendly.

Odiorne Point State Park , Rye, NH just inside the west breakwater in Little Harbor is another beach landing and has nice hiking trails. With all marine landings, be mindful of the tides!

Fort McClary State Historic Site , Pepperrell Rd., (Rt. 103), Kittery Point, ME,  (207) 439-2845, has some limited trails and great views of the harbor.

Photo: Strawbery Banke with fall foliage by Eric Gendron, Flickr

Other Things To Do

The area is filled with things to do suiting almost any interest, however most would require a taxi ride as dinghy tie-up space is quite limited or nonexistent.

The Kittery Art Association , 2 Walker St., Kittery, and the NH Art Association , 136 State St., Portsmouth, show a variety of artwork.

The New Castle Historical Society , 120 Main St., New Castle, is open Wednesday afternoons and holds monthly presentations. On Sundays, there are concerts at the church gazebo in the village.

The Kittery Historic and Naval Museum , a short taxi ride, is fascinating.

The Discover Portsmouth Center is a great place to start to explore Portsmouth. There are the famous historical houses of the Strawbery Banke Museum , and there are the independent houses: John Paul Jones House ,43 Middle St.; Wentworth–Coolidge Mansion , 375 Little Harbor Rd., a colonial governor’s house; Wentworth-Gardner House , 50 Mechanic St.; Warner House ,150 Daniel St.; and the Moffitt-Ladd House , 154 Market St., and several more.

The Albacore Museum offers a real submarine for tours. The USS Albacore is a research submarine, designed by the U.S. Navy to test experimental features used in modern submarines.

OUR REVIEWS

What CCA Members are saying:

As a young boy, l learned to row then sail on the Piscataqua River. Learning about the tides with their currents and eddies helps understanding how to get around. Some venues remain the same and some have evolved over time, but it is still a mighty river basin with its charms.

Charlie Tarbell

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Where is everything?: Map and pins for points of interest regarding the race

Moorings/Slips: Pepperrell Cove Kittery : Moorings and slips. Check with Kittery Harbormaster for pricing. Portsmouth Yacht Club: Moorings, launch service, showers and fuel. $45 mooring/night Prescott Park: Downtown Portsmouth slips. Wentworth Marina : Slips, showers, restaurants, fuel and pump out.

Restaurants, Stores, Post Offices: Downtown Portsmouth, Kittery Point town dock and New Castle. All three offer a fine selection of wines, groceries, beer, liquor, and a deli with sandwiches and other prepared foods to go.

More local area specifics: See the Portsmouth Yacht Club website for information about the local area

Pump out: Wentworth Marina Mobile pump out (603) 670-5130

Snag-A-Slip Booking

Portsmouth Yacht Club-PRIVATE

+1 (603) 436-9877

[email protected]

http://www.portsmouthyc.org

Monitored: 9 | Working: 78

New Castle, NH | N 43° 04.380' / W 070° 43.070'

76 Piscatuqua Street

New Castle, NH 03854

Body of Water

Portsmouth Harbor

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• Portsmouth Yacht Club, New Hampshire, United States

United States

New Hampshire

Sailing / Yacht Club

Portsmouth Yacht Club

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Founded Year

Located in New Castle, New Hampshire the Portsmouth Yacht club was founded in 1898 and has a club house located on the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth Harbor. We have guest moorings on the river, and in Pepperrell Cove across the harbor in addition to moorings at the Isles of Shoals.

76 Piscataqua St

603-436-9877

[email protected]

http://www.portsmouthyc.org/

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Isles of Shoals Points of Interest

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Star Island: The historic Oceanic Hotel and Conference Center is located on   Star Island  .  There is gift shop and an ice cream bar.

Appledore: Appledore Island is home to the  Shoals Marine Lab  cooperatively operated by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire.

Brief History Compliments of Wikipedia:

Some of the islands were used for seasonal fishing camps by Native Americans and first settled by Europeans in the early 17th century. They became an important fishing area for the young British and French colonies. The Isles of Shoals were named by English explorer Capt. John Smith after sighting them in 1614. The first recorded landfall of an Englishman was that of explorer Capt. Christopher Levett, whose 300 fishermen in six ships discovered that the Isles of Shoals were largely abandoned in 1623.

“The first place I set my foot upon in New England was the Isle of Shoals, being islands in the sea about two leagues from the main,” Levett wrote later. “Upon these islands I neither could see one good timber-tree nor so much good ground as to make a garden. The place is found to be a good fishing-place for six ships, but more can not be well there, for want of convenient stage room, as this year’s experience hath proved.”

The first township, Appledore, included all of the Isles of Shoals, and was incorporated by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1661. At that time, the province of New Hampshire and the province of Maine were both a part of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Starting in 1680 and continuing for several years, there was a general migration of the population to Star Island in New Hampshire, departing from the Maine (Massachusetts) Hog Island (now known as Appledore). In 1715 the township of Gosport was established by New Hampshire on Star Island.

The Gosport community was fairly prosperous up until about 1778, when the islanders were evacuated to Rye, New Hampshire due to the Revolutionary War. Though a small population remained, the islands were largely abandoned until the middle of the 19th century, when Thomas Laighton and Levi Thaxter opened a popular summer hotel on Appledore Island. Laighton’s daughter, Celia, married Levi at the age of fifteen and as Celia Thaxter became the most popular American female poet of the 19th century. She hosted an arts community on the island frequented by such luminaries as author Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Impressionist painter, Childe Hassam. Having executed his last drawing three days previous, the Boston painter William Morris Hunt drowned here in 1879, reportedly a suicide. [6] Hunt’s body was discovered by Celia Thaxter. [7] The popularity of Laighton’s Appledore House soon led to establishment of the Mid-Ocean House on Smuttynose Island, and the Oceanic Hotel, which is still in use today on Star Island.

Appledore Island

Appledore Island, in Maine, is the largest of the Isles of Shoals, at 95 acres (38 ha). Formerly known as Hog Island, and prior to that as Farm Island, it is approximately 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from east to west, and 0.6 miles (1.0 km) from north to south. It was home to a large hotel, The Appledore House, during the 19th century. Built in 1847 and opened the following year, the hotel was lost to a fire in 1914. According to Celia Thaxter, as late as 1873, “Philip Babb, or some evil-minded descendant of his, haunted Appledore.” [8] Today, the island is the operating station of the Shoals Marine Laboratory, run cooperatively by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire. The island is mostly owned by the Star Island Corporation.

Star Island

Second in size at 46 acres (19 ha), Star Island is located in New Hampshire within the borders of the town of Rye and is the only island served by a commercial boat from the mainland. It is a religious conference center, owned by the Star Island Corporation, which is affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ. During the summer, the island hosts a number of week-long and shorter conferences which make use of the Oceanic Hotel, Gosport House, the 150-year-old chapel, and several buildings dating back to the original village. Short-term day visitors are also welcomed, although that may depend on the boat schedule. This is also a popular destination for sailboats wishing to tie up overnight in Gosport harbor.

 Smuttynose and Malaga Islands

Smuttynose Island, at 25 acres (10 ha), is the third-largest island. It is known as the site of Blackbeard’s honeymoon, later for the shipwreck of the Spanish ship Sagunto in 1813, and then for the notorious 1873 murders of two young women. The latter is recalled in the story, “A Memorable Murder”, by Celia Thaxter, in the 1997 novel, The Weight of Water , by Anita Shreve (and in the film of the same name), and in the song, “The Ballad of Louis Wagner” by John Perrault. There are two small houses on the island. One of them, the Samuel Haley house, was once believed to be the oldest structure in the state of Maine. Smuttynose is not populated today.

Malaga Island is a diminutive island just to the west of Smuttynose, connected to it by a breakwater. That breakwater was built around 1820 by Captain Samuel Haley, who is reputed to have paid for its construction with proceeds from four bars of pirate silver that he found under a flat rock on the island.

Other islands include White Island and Lunging Island on the New Hampshire side of the border and Duck and Cedar Islands on the Maine side. White Island features one of the two lighthouses on the New Hampshire coast. Lunging Island, formerly Londoner’s Island, was the site of an early trading post for codfish. Today, it is privately owned.

Duck Island lies about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the north and once was used as a bombing range for the US Navy. It has been sold by the Star Island Corporation to the Maine Coastal Heritage Trust and is kept as a wildlife sanctuary. It is home to a seal colony and has never supported a human population.

Cedar Island is connected by breakwaters to both Smuttynose Island and Star Island and is privately owned.

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Portsmouth Moorings

Welcome to portsmouth moorings, starting from just £350 per year we operate a variety of tidal and deep water moorings in the sheltered western reaches of portsmouth harbour., suitable for both sailing and power boats up to about 9 metres, these are located in delightful natural surroundings and offer quick access to the solent, isle of wight and nearby ports of interest along this attractive stretch of the south coast., historic yarmouth, busy lymington and newtown creek are in the western solent, bembridge has a welcoming sailing club whilst priory bay and ryde are beach side destinations just a couple of hours away., the moorings offer you, sheltered locations, easy access to the solent, free car park, public pontoon and launching slipway, the large enclosed area of portsmouth harbour not only provides a safe haven but is also excellent for day sailing or just enjoying being on the water. the moorings are in an area of special scientific interest and it is an important habitat for a wide variety of marine birds., access to the water is via our own foreshore or by the public pontoon and there is ample free parking in st helier road. our moorings are fully maintained by james and luke., mooring locations, located just north of the hardway sailing club. these moorings are ideal for boats up to 7 metres able to take the bottom which is soft mud. close to our lock up dinghy compound and access slipway., area 29 & 31, these moorings are pleasantly situated in a quiet part of the harbour and sheltered from prevailing winds. suitable for boats up to 9 metres., situated in the north of the harbour, how to find us, if it’s your first visit to hardway, why not arrange a time to meet us and we can show you all aspects of what we can offer you., from j11 on the m 27, take the a32 towards gosport. after 3 1/2 miles turn left at traffic lights towards hardway and priddy’s hard. after i mile turn left at traffic lights to hardway and left in to priory road. the slipway at 99, priory road is about 300 metres on your left just before you reach the hardway sailing club. if you pass the club you have gone too far, from gosport ferry, head north past the castle tavern and turn right at the fourth set of lights into the crossways.   go over the mini roundabout past the glencoe and then turn right into sealark road.turn left at the roundabout and continue to the t junction. turn left at the t junction and then right and go past the car park on you left. when you see the harbour at the next t junction turn left and the slipway at 99 priory road is on the right immediately after the hardway sailing club..

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99 priory rd hardway gosport hampshire po12 4lf, please call or text us to discuss a suitable mooring for your boat. james 07811 316 820 or luke 07966 096 929, portsmouth moorings ltd. company registration no. 14386354.

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The club have a number of Club Moorings available, if you are looking for a mooring then please get in touch with the Moorings Manager, who will be able to provide more information.

Harbour Entrance

The club have fully-maintained moorings right at the entrance to the Portsmouth Harbour, you can be on out on the Solent within minutes of letting go of the buoy

As with any of the PSC moorings we can offer storage for tenders in one of the PSC boat yards.

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Weevil Creek

The club have several self-maintained moorings located in Weevil Creek / Forton Lake.

Fountain Lake

The club has self-maintained moorings located at Fountain lake near Whale Island.

Last updated 22:22 on 27 July 2023