Crossing Sardinia to Minorca timing?

[whiteoaks7]

Get your crystal balls out guys - taking into account the weather patterns in recent years is there a preferred time to cross from Sardinia to Minorca in the summer - July earliest, Sept latest? A whoolly question I know but we have to arrange crew and they have to arrange cheap flights ... and so on.

 

[silver-fox]

I have just had a look at my passage planner for the months you are considering, and the probability of a favourable wind is slightly in your favour but with no statistically favourite month.

My experience of doing the trip from Minorca in August last year was that the winds were predominantly Easterlies except when depressions came in from the Atlantic when Westerlies were the order of the day, for a day or two.

This is of course pretty unpredictable and you are going to have to just take a chance with the flights.

We waited about a week for favourable winds IIRC and then had a great sail, flying the cruising chute for hour after hour.

not much help I am afraid .. but good luck and fair winds!

 

[LadyJessie]

There is never a 'safe good time', however July to September is normally outside of the storm season in that area so you 'should' be OK. You can have winds from all directions, but the predominant ones will be in the NW to NE quadrant. The Mistral is not common in that period. The only real advice I can give is that you have to plan some considerable margin time and maybe have to sit out some days in Sardinia before you can start your crossing. That is not really a hardship as Sardinia is very enjoyable. The thing you should do is to get to Sardinia, get the boat and the crew ready to leave at about a 12 hour notice and then listen to the Italian cg weather forecast transmitted on VHF ch 67 and pick your weather window for the crossing. It is usually a great sail. Enjoy!

 

[billreilly]

Check out Passageweather.com for weather forecasts for your passage:

http://www.passageweather.com/maps/centralmed/mappage.htm

I hope this helps...

 

[vyv_cox]

Mistral is what you need to be aware of. They are usually very well forecast by the French meteo service, on their website, by VHF and on Navtex. Several days warning is common.

In 2006 it blew old boots for a week in June when we were at Port du Rhone, then July was free of virtually any wind at all. There were several big mistral blows in August, then September was quite quiet.

It seems that weather patterns are becoming disrupted universally, so you can't rely on what was previously the pattern.

 

[charles_reed]

May 22 hours, 9m LWL

 

[Ariadne]

Anchor in Mahon until the wx is favourable then head for Carloforte for some R & R, 12 hrs to Cagliari for a slightly cheaper stock up of water & food then head east.

As for the weather, none of us on here could predict that, its all a pear shaped over the last 18 months.

 

[saltwater_gypsy]

Its a fairly small weather window (30 to 35hrs) so as several forumites have said , look for a reasonable spell and go!!!
The saving grace is that if the winds get strong they are going to be northerly and give you a good point of sail.

 

[Stevie_T]

Tried doing this in 2006 (actually Greece to Spain via Sardinia and Balearics) and only got as far as Sicily before being beaten back by the weather, lack of time and constant Thunderstorm forecasts.
Tried again last year (August) and had a pleasant voyage.
We waited in Sardinia for several days due to strong winds (Northerlies) and then had a pleasant crossing to Majorca, it was fairly close to the wind all the way and we couldnt quite make Minorca direct and settled for South coast of majorca instead, where again we sheltered for several days from strong winds.
We used SSB for weatherfax and found the forecasts very reliable.