City of Berkeley Opens Renovated South Cove Windsurf and Wingfoil Rigging Lawn and Launch Ramp at Berkeley Marina

Waterfront engineers with the City of Berkeley Parks, Recreation & Waterfront Department and volunteer stewards from the Cal Sailing Club opened the newly reconstructed South Cove Windsurf, Wingfoil, and Small-Craft Launch Facility at 201 University Avenue in the Berkeley Marina on Saturday morning. Directly aligned with the Golden Gate wind slot, the sheltered South Cove basin serves as one of Northern California's busiest non-motorized wind-sports training hubs for wingfoilers, windsurfers, dinghy sailors, and stand-up paddleboarders.

Over recent winters, king tides and heavy foot traffic had eroded the shoreline rigging lawn into mud pits while barnacle-encrusted gaps at the bottom of the old concrete ramp damaged carbon-fiber hydrofoil wings during minus tides. Marine contractors poured a widened 28-foot grooved non-slip concrete launch ramp extending twelve feet farther into the subtidal zone, flanked by high-density polyethylene rub-rail bumpers that protect carbon boards and fiberglass hulls from rock riprap.

On the adjacent 18,000-square-foot rigging meadow facing University Avenue, crews installed cellular permeable grass-paver grids seeded with salt-tolerant seashore paspalum and bordered by padded timber mast-rest racks. Sailors can now rig mylar sails and inflatable wings without abrasive sand or mud fouling mast tracks. Two solar-heated outdoor freshwater showers and a neoprene wetsuit drying rack were also commissioned beside the South Cove restroom pavilion.

The $520,000 waterfront improvement was funded through the California Division of Boating and Waterways Non-Motorized Boating Access Program and the Berkeley Marina Fund. Mariners can check live South Cove anemometer wind readings and beginner sailing open-house dates on the City of Berkeley Waterfront Portal.