Can you sail the Med through winter.

Nostrodamus

Nostrodamus

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Just a thought...
How feasible is it to sail the Med through winter (west to east ) staying in the various marinas only when bad weather is expected?
Anyone done this?
 
Med in winter

Nostrodamus said:
Just a thought...
How feasible is it to sail the Med through winter (west to east ) staying in the various marinas only when bad weather is expected?
Anyone done this?
Click to expand...

We did it the hard way, East from Corsica to West Aguadulce. Spent Jan to March in Toulon re-engining, never again. October to May.
Stearman65.
 
We more or less ONLY sail during winter,if you have to pay its almost affordable,

Corsica Sardinia and the Bay of Naples all have endless anchorages without jet skis or harbors for up to a week without charge. Theres often wind for fast passages.And when it snows it dosnt last

Summers to hot to crowded and expensive
 
Nostrodamus said:
Just a thought...
How feasible is it to sail the Med through winter (west to east ) staying in the various marinas only when bad weather is expected?
Anyone done this?
Click to expand...

Yes - we did no problem. you do need to keep a closer eye on the weather. Much Better IMO - we kept coming in to port and being told it was far too rough to sail and had all the anchorages to ourselves
 
For the last time................

Go to the Caribbean :):):)

I have done both with young children on board and the Caribbean is fantastic.

Loads more families with kids on board

Loads cheaper

Loads more fun

....and the Atlantic will probably be the easiest patch of water you will do.

You have done the hard stuff already.

Here we all are at Christmas

IMG_0148.JPG


IMG_0261+%282%29.JPG
 
We spend the winter in the med, not in a marina, but at anchor somewhere.

With good anchoring gear it is a viabiable option IMHO.
However the weather is less predictable over winter, so you need to stay in anchorages that offer 360 degree protection, at least close by.

I don't feel it's practical to retreat to a marina when bad weather is forcast. The forecasts in winter are less reliable. The worst weather I have ever experienced at anchor was winter the med and only a force 6 was forcast. If you go to marina every time there is a force 6 or above forcast you will spend most of your time in a marina.

Go to anchorages with good protection and be prepared or 50 knots plus no matter what the forcast. That is the formular for successful cruising of med in winter.
The cruising is very different from summer. In winter you need to travel carefully from one well protected anchorage to another well protected anchorage. This means spending much longer at each anchorage than in summer.

However, I find life at anchor much nicer than a crowded marina.
 
We spent a winter in Mgarr Marina, Gozo about ten years ago.

As winter progressed we realised that we could easily have spent the time at anchor.

Malta and Gozo have many anchorages and as 'square' islands it is always possible to anchor in the lee of weather given a decent forecast.

Whilst static in harbour we met a number of transiting crews passing through as they wintered on the hoof. One Brit couple, in their eighties, on a 23 footer!
 
The weather forecasts for your precise bit of Med will not be very accurate. However, the overall situation will be. From that you can easily see if there is a significant risk of adverse weather or not. This you can easily appreciate from a a few days forecast in a grib file. The overall picture will be right for the next 2 days or so. However the precise location of that bit of red with F10 winds in it, may turn out to be 50 miles wrong. Or 6 hours wrong. If either of those might put you in it, then obviously you should plan to be somewhere cosy. The windfinder/windguru forcecasts (or many others) for your port/beach can sometimes be spectacularly wrong - because that red bit on the grib moved a few miles.

Weather can be nice. It can also get very cold if you are unlucky. Our port was frozen this year in the South of France.
 
Michael has got it right.

I put it more simply. There are only two sorts of weather in the Med:

1. Settled
2. Unsettled

As long as you keep away from the Mistral zone, 60% of the time over winter it's going to be settled - nice and sunny, light winds. And the approach of unsettled weather can easily be detected from forecasts - particularly by watching cloud predictions as well as wind forecasts.

In unsettled weather, hole up. Unsettled is when significant areas of cloud abound over the sea. A thunderstorm may bring a tornado or roll cloud as good company, and that means a short period of 40kt (sometimes more) wind from any direction. And a bigger depression may bring prolonged periods of strong wind (24hr plus) from the south as it approaches, together with an exciting nest of chaos in the middle and an uncertain ending.

Also, in winter, best to keep clear of:
1. Gibraltar straights
2. The big area affected by the Mistral (French coast Spain to Toulon, west coasts of Corsica and Sardinia, north of Minorca)
3. Bora country - N half of Adriatic (it's also cold up there!)
4. Northern Aegean and Sea of Marmara - only because it's cold though!
 
If you are wintering in the Med you need to be prepared for 1 x 50k storm + 2x40k. Over the last 5 years that has been our average.

Often small harbours are the worst place to be. ( although it does depend on the harbour). Anchoring in a protected spot with good anchoring gear is generally much better IMHO.

To try to avoid meeting these storms at anchor by going into a marina when bad weather is forcast does not work unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time in a marina.
 
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