Nawiliwili Small Boat Harbor (SBH) is located on the southeastern coast of Kauai. The project was authorized in 1964 under Section 107 of the River and Harbor Act of 1960, as amended. The non-Federal sponsor is the State of Hawai’i Department of Land and Natural Resources. The project is in the operations and maintenance phase.

The Nawiliwili SBH was cost shared with the local sponsor and completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) in 1974.  The project consists of an entrance channel that is 1,035 feet long, 120 feet wide and 12 feet deep; an access channel that is 688 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 8-10 feet deep; a revetted dike that is 1,459 feet long; a breakwater that is 453 feet long; and a stub breakwater that is 144 feet long; two revetments adjacent to the revetted dike and stub breakwater, that are 395 feet long and 393 feet long, respectively.

Nawiliwili SBH is a part of Nawiliwili Deep Draft Harbor, the principal commercial harbor on Kauai. The latest waterborne commerce statistics reports 832,000 short tons of cargo were shipped through the deep draft harbor in 2024.  

Nawiliwili SBH is open to boating craft arriving from neighbor islands. The harbor contains a yacht club, which is well known for organizing fleet races, boat handling courses, as well as fishing tournaments.  

The Corps is responsible for maintaining the structure and project depths.  Maintenance repairs were completed in April 2016 and repair work consisted of removing and resetting the armor and bedding stones in the revetted dike and reshaping the crest surface.