You Can Now Hire a Picnic Boat to Sail Down the Yarra River

Melburnians now have another excuse to hit the water, with GoBoat splashing into town.

The Denmark-born company has been busy launching its eco-friendly picnic boats in cities all over Europe and, in our patch of the world, it's now up and running in Melbourne, giving punters a fun new way to cruise the Yarra.

Aimed at making the whole boating caper more accessible for everyday folk, the Scandinavian-designed vessels are slow-moving, a breeze to operate and don't require a boating licence, making for some fun, fuss-free sailing sessions. In a win for the planet, they also run on silent, pollution-free, electric engines, and are crafted from a mix of reclaimed timber and recycled PET bottles.

Each of the contemporary GoBoats clocks in at 18-feet long, boasting a central picnic table with room for eight people (and all the necessary snacks and booze). And despite what you might be thinking, they're even affordable enough to fit your post-holiday budget — simply BYO food and drinks, find enough eager sailors to jump aboard and a GoBoat session will cost you less than $15 per person, per hour. That's $109 hourly in total, or $189 for two hours, $279 for three hours, $349 for four hours, $429 for five hours and $509 for six hours.

Yes, you can really make a whole day of it. Bookings are available for the service's first stint until the end of May, with timeslots available in 15-minute increments from 9am. The boats required to be returned by sunset (8pm at present, 7.30pm until mid-March, and then decreasing down to 6pm at the end of the season).

GoBoats' fleet of four Melbourne vessels is now setting sail out of Docklands, with six more to come. Oh, and did we mention they're pet-friendly? Surely you've got a very good boy who deserves a river jaunt.

For more information about GoBoat, or to make a booking, visit the service's website.

Images: Lean Timms.