End of Med Sailing Season?

[rabbidoninoz]

What would you experienced hands consider the latest in the year to comfortably coastal-hop the French and Italian coasts and cross from southern Italy to Corfu? Would mid-October be too late to set out from Port Napoleon?

[mikedefieslife]

Mid October to early November is the end of days. After that on the Greek side you get mad crazy winds and driving rain a good 80% of the time. When it's not like that though there are still windows of a day or two of decent weather.

[yeloya]

I've sailed from Marmaris to Gibraltar starting mid November till Christmas. October is OK, late November-December was terrible, damn cold, strong winds up to 10 Bf around Crete and wet.
If you intend to go until there, South eastern part of Turkey would be OK till the end of November.


Cheers


Yeloya

[rabbidoninoz]

Thanks for the quick responses,

[rabbidoninoz]

Thanks for the quick responses, Mike and Yeloya! So I guess that, unless I'm prepared to spend lots of days waiting for brief weather windows, it will be better to either move up the schedule or leave the boat in Port Napoleon until spring.

[boatman61]

For work.. year round is fine.
For pleasure.. after Mid September your pushing the envelope in many areas..

[AZUS]

This past year, we sailed from Corsica down to Sicily in mid-October and were very comfortable. We spent another couple of weeks putting the boat away, and noted just a few boats coming in in the last week of October.

For us, I would put October as the latest I would want to have the boat out before tucking her away for the season.

[Kiwi.]

When do people consider the start of the season to be?

[atoll]

Originally Posted by Kiwi.

When do people consider the start of the season to be?

early april-may

[aye-aye-captain]

Originally Posted by atoll

early april-may

Yep definitely !

[Rapanui]

It is very variable spring and autumn but in the Adriatic April to October albeit you still have a chance of either or both end months being bad.
2016 you could have sailed until Christmas with lots of good weather and no rain.
2017 September was poor wet and windy after a really hot summer, but October was better.
One thing that is fairly consistent are the overnight minimum temperatures which rise pretty quickly in April and drop quickly in October. From mid October to mid April most people will need heating.

[Kiwi.]

Originally Posted by Rapanui

It is very variable spring and autumn but in the Adriatic April to October albeit you still have a chance of either or both end months being bad.
2016 you could have sailed until Christmas with lots of good weather and no rain.
2017 September was poor wet and windy after a really hot summer, but October was better.
One thing that is fairly consistent are the overnight minimum temperatures which rise pretty quickly in April and drop quickly in October. From mid October to mid April most people will need heating.

Thanks for that. We're planning on selling Nikka sometime in the next year and buying similar in the Med for my oncoming retirement plan.
It's been a crazy season here in NZ with some beautiful weather for a week or two followed by some serious blows. Today we've had a decent northerly blow up to 40 knots in the Hauraki Gulf and we're still getting 30 knot gusts tonight (NZ time) in our anchorage in Fitzroy. Love my Rocna!

[Polux]

It all depends on what you are whiling to endure and also on the particular year and location.

If you don't stay at ports (to wait the bad weather to go away) than late october is the limit even if after mid september you get some days with heavy rain, big thunderstorms ( last 15 days of September).

Many times a good part of October is better than the last 15 days of September even if the temperature starts to decrease on the north mediterranean.

In october the fist big winter storms may well start to show up.

That does not mean that if you are sheltered in a good port there are not many sunny days through the winter where you can have some very nice sailing days or even weeks, specially on the South, or even out of the med in Algarve on the south Portuguese coast.

[mikedefieslife]

Late September when I was in Siracusa there was thunder and lightening practically every day. Not necessarily rain, and it wasn't necessarily close, but it was there.

In fact in was in Siracusa I got tagged by some kind of electrical blast during a storm. I only went out to bring my cockpit cushions in.

[meirriba]

Originally Posted by Kiwi.

When do people consider the start of the season to be?

We have started last year at the beginning of April in the Dodecanese area. It was manageable but cold. Had to use occasionally full assortment of clothes and had occasional interruptions due to bad weather (but this can happen in high summer as well)