Volta a Portugal à Vela
Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto) · Portugal
- Type
- Offshore
- Scoring
- ORC
- Boats
- Rated yachts · Cruiser-friendly
- Usually
- July, August · irregular years
- Next
- Jul 2027 (usual month; dates not announced)
- Organiser
- Federação Portuguesa de Vela with local clubs
- Waters
- Atlantic
- First held
- 1986 · 40 years ago
The course
Point to point · as sailed in 2026
- SVila Nova de Gaia (coastal race, 25 July)Start
- 1Figueira da Foz (stage port)Mark
- 2Cascais (stage port)Mark
- 3Lisboa (stage port)Mark
- 4Sines (stage port)Mark
- FPortimão (final coastal race, 1 Aug)Finish
Organiser's course Straight lines between the marks, not the track boats sail. Named marks sit at the named island or cape, not on the exact rounding line. For planning and interest; the sailing instructions decide.
2026 revival, 8 stages along the Portuguese coast; intermediate entries are stage ports, not rounding marks. No distances published.
Six seasons
| Year | Winner (handicap, corrected) | Line honours (first home, elapsed) | Boats | Wind and sea | Toughness | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 202624 Jul 2026 – 1 Aug 2026 | Not published | — | 31 | NW 4.7 kn, gusts 29.2waves up to 1.14 m | 31 | — |
| 2025No edition | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2024No edition | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2023No edition | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2022No edition | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2021No edition | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Line honours go to the first boat home, on elapsed time. Overall winner is the best on handicap (IRC or ORC corrected time), so they are often different boats. Wind is the daily mean at the start venue over the racing days; gusts and waves are the highest of those days. Open-Meteo historical weather (ERA5) and marine APIs, CC BY 4.0; venue point only, not the full course.
Race metrics
Toughness
Compare all races- Wind 5.6/304.7 kn mean
- Gusts 9.7/1529.2 kn
- Sea 5.5/201.1 m waves
- Distance 0/25not published
- Duration 10/109 days
How the score works
Our own index, not an official rating. Five inputs, each scaled to its share of 100: mean wind (up to 25 kn → 30 points), strongest gust (45 kn → 15), highest waves (4 m → 20), course length on a log scale (700 nm → 25) and days of racing (7 days → 10). Wind and waves are ERA5 reanalysis at Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto) (Open-Meteo) on the race days, so an offshore course can see more than the venue does. A missing input counts as zero and is marked. Roughest edition we hold: 2026 (31).
Weather calendar · Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto)
Month by month at the venue, 2021–2026 (ERA5 and marine reanalysis). Race months in orange.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean windkn | 8.1 | 7.5 | 7.7 | 6.8 | 6.8 | 6.2 | 6.5 | 5.9 | 6.4 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.9 |
| Windy days% ≥ 20 kn | 9 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 4 | 5 |
| Wavesm, daily max | 2.6 | 2.5 | 2.7 | 1.9 | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.6 | 2.0 | 2.3 | 2.5 |
| From | E | E | E | NW | NW | NW | NW | NW | NW | S | E | SE |
Typical wind at Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto)
Mean knots by month, 2021–2025. Race months in full colour.
Where the wind comes from
Share of days by direction in Jul, Aug.
Fact sheet
For press, partners and sponsors: the race in a dozen lines, from published sources. Copy it whole; please keep the source line.
- Race
- Volta a Portugal à Vela
- Kind
- offshore sailing race from Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto), Portugal
- First held
- 1986
- Editions on record
- 1 since 2021
- Typical fleet
- 31 boats (31 in the latest edition)
- Organiser
- Federação Portuguesa de Vela with local clubs
- Next edition
- usually Jul 2027
- Official site
- https://fpvela.pt/
Results as published by the organiser Weather: Open-Meteo, CC BY 4.0 Dates as announced
Sources
- fpvela.pt — 2026 notice of race (FPV)
- barlavento.pt — 2026 route, entries, first since 2003
- fpvela.pt — FPV announcement: 25 Jul-1 Aug 2026, eight stages