Marine Services in Sebastian, Florida

Marine services in Sebastian center on Indian River Drive, where the city runs two public boat ramps with dock areas and fishing piers and the Fisherman's Landing working waterfront, while the Sebastian Inlet District maintains the inlet channel to the Atlantic (City of Sebastian).

The pieces split between public and private hands. The City of Sebastian owns the ramps and the two-acre working waterfront, the Sebastian Community Redevelopment Agency pays for docks and submerged land leases along the riverfront and the special district created in 1919 handles dredging and channel markers (Sebastian CRA).

Boats launch in Sebastian at two city ramps on Indian River Drive, the Yacht Club ramp at 820 and the Main Street ramp at 1300, plus a ramp inside Sebastian Inlet State Park (City of Sebastian).

The Yacht Club is a dual concrete ramp into the Indian River, which the city also identifies as the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, just north of Riverview Park. It has a fishing pier, boat dock areas, a restroom and handicapped parking, and the city points truck and trailer drivers to its larger parking area across the street in Riverview Park (Yacht Club facility page). The building beside the ramp, the Yacht Club itself, is a city meeting and event hall.

The Main Street ramp sits where Main Street meets Indian River Drive, just east of U.S. Highway 1, with trailer parking and restrooms. The city describes it as the center of the Sebastian Waterfront District, with Sebastian Inlet a short run across the Intracoastal from the park (Main Street Park and Boat Ramp). The CRA has paid for boat ramp repair and boat and car parking at Main Street and for a finger pier at the Yacht Club (CRA projects).

At the inlet, Sebastian Inlet State Park lists a boat ramp and a canoe and kayak launch among its amenities, charges $8 per vehicle, and is recognized by the Clean Marina program (Florida State Parks). Its phone number is 321-984-4852.

Boaters in Sebastian tie up at city-owned dock areas, chiefly at the Yacht Club ramp on Indian River Drive (City of Sebastian).

The Yacht Club ramp has boat dock areas and a fishing pier, and the rebuilt fish piers at Fisherman's Landing serve the commercial fishermen who lease the working waterfront (Stan Mayfield Working Waterfront).

The Main Street Docks and Boat Ramp also has a fishing pier for anglers who are not going out on the water, and Heritage Circle, a small park across the street from the Sebastian Chamber of Commerce, looks out over the Indian River (Main Street Park and Boat Ramp).

The Sebastian Community Redevelopment Agency has paid for much of this riverfront access: a boat dock, landscaping and shoreline stabilization at Riverview Park in 2001, improvements to the Yacht Club and its finger pier, information boards at Riverview Park and the Main Street Boat Ramp Park, and the submerged land leases that keep waterfront access open along the Indian River Drive district (Sebastian CRA projects).

Dining by boat takes a phone call first. Visit Indian River County, the official visitors bureau and destination marketing office designated by the Indian River County Board of County Commissioners and operated within the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce (Visit Indian River County), publishes a list of restaurants reachable by boat, but it notes that the list was compiled from Google Maps, may be out of date, and recommends calling each restaurant to confirm that a public dock is available before heading out (Visit Indian River County list).

Fisherman's Landing Sebastian is a two-acre, city-owned working waterfront on the Indian River Lagoon, bought with Florida Forever money and run as a partnership with a nonprofit fishermen's group (City of Sebastian).

City staff began discussing the revival of a working waterfront in early 2009 as part of Sebastian's Fishing Village heritage, and the city applied to the Stan Mayfield Working Waterfronts Florida Forever grant program, which Florida Communities Trust administers. The trust awarded more than $3.1 million for the property, the City of Sebastian contributed more than $351,000 in local match, and the city later funded an additional $300,000 for purchase and remodel (Stan Mayfield Working Waterfront).

The old Hurricane Harbor building was restored as a wholesale and retail fish market, an eatery and a waterfront museum of Sebastian fishing history. Construction to restore and rebuild the fish piers and fish house, with boardwalks along the river, was completed by the end of 2015, and a public toilet facility followed in early fall 2017. The CRA lists a lease with Crab E Bills for the retail fish market and limited eatery and a lease with Fisherman's Landing, Inc. for the commercial fishermen who use the site, and it has funded roof, plumbing and dock repairs (CRA projects).

The city page is out of date in one spot. It still says a project with Florida Inland Navigation District funding for landscaping, signage, shoreline protection and parking will be constructed in 2020, and its newest dated item is a Fisherman's Landing presentation to the City Council on June 23, 2021 (City of Sebastian). The CRA that pays for much of this riverfront work faces a deadline: under F.S. 163.3755 the Sebastian CRA shall sunset on September 30, 2033 unless the City Council votes to continue it (Sunsetting the Programs).

The Sebastian Inlet District, an independent special taxing district created in 1919, maintains the channel and markers that link Sebastian's riverfront docks to the Atlantic through Sebastian Inlet (Sebastian Inlet District).

The District calls the Sebastian Inlet Channel the only charted inlet between Cape Canaveral and Fort Pierce, and a local knowledge, fair-weather inlet used largely by smaller recreational fishing boats (Navigation). FDOT's bridge study puts the nearest alternatives at Fort Pierce Inlet, 28 miles south, and Port Canaveral Inlet, 29 miles north (FDOT).

The 3,120-foot channel connecting Sebastian Inlet to the Intracoastal Waterway was designed to be at least 150 feet wide and 9 feet deep, and some areas were dredged to 12 feet in the most recent maintenance project. The District has maintained the channel markers since 2007 and posts semi-annual bathymetric survey maps for boaters; the U.S. Coast Guard maintains the Intracoastal Waterway markers, and missing or downed inlet channel markers go to the District at (321) 724-5175 (District FAQ).

Property owners in the District pay for this work. The FY 2025-2026 tax rate is 0.1555 mills on property within its Brevard and Indian River county boundaries, generating $7.56 million, and dredging and sand bypass projects come every 4 to 5 years as the inlet sand trap fills to about 200,000 cubic yards (District FAQ). The latest, the Sand Trap Dredging and Beach Placement Project, was completed in April 2026 with about 271,000 cubic yards placed on the south beach (District projects).

Last verified: October 14, 2026, on the City of Sebastian and Sebastian Inlet District websites.

The Sebastian Inlet bridge replacement, which FDOT began mobilizing for on June 1, 2026, will leave Sebastian boaters a higher fixed span over the inlet when it is done, with 51 feet of vertical clearance (Sebastian Inlet District; FDOT District 4).

FDOT District 4 is building the new bridge east of the existing one, with Webber, LLC as contractor, an estimated construction cost of $101.9 million and completion set for spring 2032 (FDOT District 4). The Sebastian Inlet District reposts FDOT's news releases on the project as a public courtesy and notes that the bridge is not a District project, so questions about work on the water go to FDOT (Sebastian Inlet District).

The clearance figure depends on the source. The District lists the current A1A bridge at 39 feet of vertical clearance (Sebastian Inlet District), FDOT's bridge study lists 37 feet of vertical and 120 feet of horizontal clearance (FDOT), and FDOT District 4 lists 51 feet of vertical clearance for the new bridge (FDOT District 4). Until the new span opens, the lower 37-foot official figure is the safer number for boats with tall towers or antennas.