5 Best Boat Ramps in St. Petersburg

The 5 ramps we actually recommend

St. Pete has plenty of public boat ramps. These are the five we would pick if you’re towing anything bigger than a jon boat. Here’s the honest breakdown of where we’d launch based on what you’re pulling.

Quick reference:

Demens Landing, downtown access, mid-size center consoles
Maximo Park, the workhorse, handles anything
Bay Vista Park, south end, sailboat and cruiser friendly
Coffee Pot Bayou, skiffs and bay boats only, neighborhood ramp
Crisp Park, quiet alternative when Coffee Pot is full

Demens Landing, downtown, best for 22 to 26 foot center consoles

Demens sits right off Bayshore Drive next to the St. Pete Municipal Marina, close to downtown St. Pete slips and Harborage at Bayboro. Floating docks, deep enough for almost any trailerable boat.

What to know about Demens:

Tide: not really a factor, the basin holds water at all stages.
Best for: Pathfinders, mid-size Yellowfins, 22-foot Bennington pontoons, anything you’d run out to the shipping channel or up to the Howard Frankland flats.
Nearest fuel: Municipal Marina.

The downside: it’s a working downtown ramp and the etiquette is brutal. Have your straps off and plug in before you back down, or you’ll hear about it.

Maximo Park, the one ramp that handles everything

If we had to pick one ramp in St. Pete, it’s Maximo. It has a large trailer lot, and it sits at the mouth of Boca Ciega Bay with a straight shot to the Gulf via Pass-a-Grille or out to Tampa Bay proper. This is where serious offshore guys launch.

Tide: low tide gets thin on the south side, stay in the marked channel until you’re past the markers.
Best for: 24-foot-plus Yellowfins, triple-engine center consoles, anything heading offshore.
Nearest fuel: Maximo Marina is right there.

Maximo is an easy place for us to pick up your boat and haul it to our Tampa shop.

Bay Vista Park, the south end secret

Bay Vista is on Pinellas Point Drive, looking south toward the Skyway. It has a decent floating dock, and it never gets the crowds Maximo gets because most people don’t know it exists. The water out front is deeper than you’d guess, which makes it usable for slightly bigger trailerable boats.

Tide: the ramp itself is fine at all tides, but the run out toward the Skyway gets shallow on the east side at dead low.
Best for: mid-size cruisers, sailboats with shoal draft, Hewes and Maverick skiffs going to fish the Pinellas Point grass flats.

Coffee Pot Bayou, skiffs only, and we mean it

Coffee Pot is the neighborhood ramp off Coffee Pot Boulevard NE, with no floating dock. It’s beautiful, it’s quiet, and it’s a terrible idea for anything over 20 feet.

Tide: matters a lot. At low tide, the ramp runs out of water before the trailer is deep enough to float a heavier hull.
Best for: Hewes Redfishers, Maverick Mirages, technical poling skiffs, jon boats, kayaks.
Nearest fuel: none close, fuel up before you trailer in.

The upside: you’re a five-minute idle from some of the best snook docks in the city, and the run up to the Weedon Island flats is gorgeous.

Crisp Park, the Coffee Pot overflow

Crisp Park sits on Poplar Street NE at 35th Avenue NE, north of Coffee Pot, and it’s the ramp we send people to when Coffee Pot is packed or when the tide’s too low. Basic concrete, no floating dock but a decent fixed pier to tie off.

Tide: better at low tide than Coffee Pot, there’s a deeper cut leading out.
Best for: skiffs through 21-foot bay boats. We wouldn’t try to launch a 24-foot center console here.

Ramp etiquette that will save your morning

Doesn’t matter which ramp you pick, the same rules apply:

Prep in the staging lane, not on the ramp. Straps off, plug in, drain plug confirmed, gear loaded before you back down.
If you’re solo and slow, that’s fine, just use the outside lane and let the two-person crews use the middle.

We’ll meet you at the ramp

Here is how we make it easy for trailer boaters: standard Deck Armor installs happen at our Tampa shop, where the conditions are controlled and the work stays clean. If your boat is already in the water or you don’t have a trailer, we meet you at the ramp with ours, haul it to the shop, hand-trowel your new rubber floor in place, and bring it back once it has cured. Ramp pickup covers about 50 miles around the shop, so St. Pete boaters can use it too.

Ready to upgrade the deck on whatever you’re launching? Get a free quote on our estimate page or call us at (813) 434-0395. Tell us which ramp works for you and we’ll meet you there with a trailer.