Contacts
Harbour Master   01545 560368 Mob 07773 315799
New Quay Yacht Club 01545 560516 

Please note that you are reading the notes on New Quay (Wales) not Newquay (Cornwall)

New Quay Bay is situated just over 8 miles North of Aberporth and about 4 miles South of Aberaeron on the Cardigan Bay coast. It is well sheltered from the prevailing South West winds but open to anything from the Northern quadrant. During the summer the sheltered part of the bay opposite the town is full of yachts and pleasure boats moored on four point moorings to ground chains on the drying sand of the harbour with further swinging moorings outside that.  To lie here in shelter you need to be able to take the ground; the pier itself is reserved for the few fishing boats remaining from what used to be a very healthy fishing fleet.

 
The first pier to be built here was the small pier and slip to the SE of the main pier. It was built by the local famers at the end of the seventeenth century to service a small import/export industry along with an expanding fishing fleet. During the eighteenth century a ship building industry of reasonable importance built up as it did in most of the small harbours on this coast but with the advent of steam and steel the wooden sailing vessels here could not compete and the industry died out but it should be noted that they till had a wooden sailing lifeboat here until 1948.

It was during this ship building phase that the main pier was built in the early Victorian times. The town started to attract visitors in the last half of Victoria’s reign and that opportunity was not lost on the local Welsh people who, since then, have reinvented the town as an attractive visitor destination.  (One wonders how many people turned up here when they thought they were going to Cornwall –there must be some interesting tales knocking around somewhere?)

So, what we have now is the main pier which extends the shelter provided by New Quay Head and has been further increased by the groyne extending for fifty yards south eastwards from the pier (marked by a pole with a triangular starboard hand top mark) and a very small pier which is used by a few small angling boats and has at its root the Life Boat station housing a Mersey Class Life Boat.

If coming up the coast from Fishguard/Aberporth give the coast

......... an offing of at least a couple of cables and hold a nor’ east course until pretty well all the pier can be seen (at night there is a sector light on the pier head and you should hold your course parallel with the coast until you sight it flashing every 3 seconds.

Be aware that the rocks extend out from the pier and you should lay a course to pass outside the ECM off the end of the pier to avoid them,

The harbour does not provide visitors moorings and the visitors buoy symbol on the Admiralty chart is historical.

You can anchor clear of the swinging moorings between the two piers (roughly where that visitor’s buoy is marked) but it would prudent to drop a tripping line as well.

The main pier itself is fairly busy with commercial boats picking up passengers, landing catches etc. The main point is that it would be very much to your advantage to let the HM know that you are coming and he can make arrangements for your stay (he will often know of spare owners moorings etc - for which he would make a charge)

This harbour is a back-to-basics affair; there is a water tap on the yacht club wall and showers and toilets within the yacht club.  If you need access to the YC when it is closed the HM can let you in but that is, of course, when he’s open.

Other than that there is a public toilet at the root of the pier and also a beach shower. There is no shore power.  One of the fishermen has a diesel tank and you can make arrangements with the HM for that but petrol is right out on the main road three miles away.


There is a local boat repairer who can help out with chandlery and a hardware shop (Sheffield House) at the top of the town (land at the lifeboat station, up the path to the road and follow that road all the way up the hill)

There are numerous pubs and restaurants.