When Julia Hauser arrived in Sydney from icy Minneapolis eight years ago, she left the city’s snow-bound winters for a life shaped by sun, sea, and sparkling harbour light. A newly minted Australian citizen, she has made Elizabeth Bay her working home-base and carved out a place within the city’s vibrant maritime community as co-owner of luxury boat syndication business, MV Alfie & Co.

Combining her dramatic change of scenery with a new professional chapter, Julia and her business partner Haiden Walsh started the company in 2019 with the idea of providing affordable entry into the famously expensive field of boat ownership and usage. Based at Elizabeth Bay Marina, MV Alfie & Co. offers this via a clever syndication and membership model, allowing Sydneysiders the chance to take to the waters in luxury.

But arriving at such a point in life wasn’t an obvious destination for a young woman from the US, travelling the world and allowing her free spirit free rein to dictate her movements.

“I was in Japan travelling and got the chance of a cheap flight to Australia, so I said, ‘ok, why not?’” she says. And how she ended up working at one of Sydney’s best-loved marinas was a similar case of going with the flow.

“I wasn’t a ‘boat person’ at all, but Haiden my business partner was, and we were working on a different project on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria,” she says. “Then I moved to Potts Point, and we had the idea to start a boating syndication here. We started with one boat and when Covid hit, things just blew up, because boats really boomed at that time.”

Whilst Covid restrictions affected many businesses, they proved a boon for Alfie & Co., with one of their boats fortuitously based in Queensland and benefiting from that state’s more relaxed restrictions. But Julia says Elizabeth Bay has always been their base, the service becoming a beloved amenity for locals keen to access Sydney Harbour in luxury.

“We love Elizabeth Bay, it’s a great little marina,” she says, adding that the company is named after her beloved pup, Alfie. “We’ve since added more boats to the fleet, so now we have two boats here, a third based in Balmain, and another on the Gold Coast.”

Each luxury vessel has around seven to eight shareholders, Julia says. The other key component is the membership option, where members pay a yearly fee allowing them access to any of the boats throughout the year. The boats are skippered and crewed by an experienced team, with the option to learn to operate the vessels if desired.

“Boating can be so expensive, so a membership is quite a reasonable option,” she says. “It’s an expensive hobby, but we’re making it a bit more accessible.”

And the perks of working in such a role aren’t lost on Julia, who takes every opportunity to explore the best of Sydney Harbour. “I like to go to Queens Beach or Taylors Bay at Mosman – it’s hidden from a lot of the wind and not many people go there,” she says. “Manly is great for an overnight stay too and I love waking up over there or being by Store Beach and hopefully seeing the penguins.”

Julia says they view membership as an entry point into the boating world, and that many people who start this way often realise they love it and want to become more involved as shareholders. And being such a visible part of the community is something Julia loves, her fondness for the area clearly evident in her voice.

“I really love Elizabeth Bay and Potts Point. I lived on Kellett St when I first came here and I fell in love with it,” she says. “It’s such a beautiful area. The people are nice, they actually look at you and acknowledge you, and that can be something few and far between in Sydney. It just feels like community here.”

And whilst Julia still misses her former hometown of Minneapolis, it’s safe to say her friendly face is set to remain a fixture on the gorgeous harbourside of Elizabeth Bay Marina for quite some time yet.

More information about MV Alfie & Co. can be found at https://www.mvalfieandco.com.au/

By Adam Gibson 

Photos by Simone McAullay