Leg 8/2025
12 – 18 July: Lagos/Portugal – Portosanto/Madeira, 450 nm
For the 3 days crossing to Portosanto/Madeira we have earmarked twice as many days so that we should be able to pick a fine weather window to cross the TSS off the Cape San Vicente (the SW corner of Portugal).
There is often a stiff breeze blowing around the cape especially in the afternoons. So the plan is to leave an early morning on a day when strong N-winds are not predicted and then to quickly sail through the belt of north-winds in order to reach pleasant winds from behind all the way to Portosanto.
Cape San Vicente how I have most often experienced it: calm pleasant winds, this time rounding from North to the Algarve.
Having passed Cape San Vicente it’s mainly pleasant downwind sailing to Portosanto. Photo taken in 2021 on the way to Madeira.
Portosanto in sight after 3 days at sea! Photo taken in 2021 when we made landfall.
From Portosanto you can take a short 10 minutes flight or ferry to mainland Madeira and Funchal Airport. From there flying home is an easy thing with many flights going to and from Madeira from all over Europe.
Portosanto is really a fantastic island.
Drawing our logo on the harbour mole.
This is how it looks is 2024 (photo courtesy of Carol Wo, who passed by in August 2024 in her Hallberg-Rassy 340 on her way to the Caribbean. In other words: Time for a touch-up!!!!
Portosanto has one of the most beautiful and long beaches. And the best of it all: hardly any people!
The marina of Portosanto. Carol told me that it has been extended and rebuilt after the storm in 2019. I can’t wait to see it in 2025 again!
Who would believe that Portosanto has one of the longest airports in the Atlantic!
It’s all vulcano!
The anchorage in the marina has now become a field of buoys while were were there in 2021. You can see all the missing pontoons which were taken in a storm in 2019 (or was it 2020?). Carol who just passed by on her own Hallberg-Rassy told that it has all been rebuilt!
