Sardinia & the Costa Smeralda
| Région | nord de la Sardaigne, Méditerranée occidentale, Italie |
|---|---|
| Meilleure saison | de juin à septembre, pic en août |
| Ports clés | Porto Cervo, Porto Rotondo, Olbia |
| Mouillages signatures | archipel de la Maddalena (Spargi, secteur de Budelli, Cala Coticcio) |
| Régates | le Yacht Club Costa Smeralda accueille la Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup |
| Règle clé | permis du parc de la Maddalena obligatoire, plage rose de Budelli interdite |
| Juridiction | Italie (Union européenne), TVA italienne sur le charter |
| À surveiller | le mistral dans les bouches de Bonifacio |
| Zone MA | all traffic, anchoring and stopping prohibited, including Cala Roto, the pink beach on Budelli |
| Speed in the park | 7 knots within 500 m of the coast, 10 knots between 500 m and 1,000 m |
| Fixed weeks in 2026 | Giorgio Armani Superyacht Regatta 26 to 30 May, Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 6 to 12 September |
| Air access | Olbia Costa Smeralda, about 28,000 aircraft movements a year and severely slot-constrained in early August |
| Peak berth 2026 | EUR 5,437 a day at Porto Cervo Marina from 1 to 20 August for a hull to 55 m and 10 m beam, VAT included |
| Same berth off peak | EUR 3,780 a day from 10 July to 5 September, EUR 1,569 in June, EUR 386 in May and October |
| A counter-rate August at Porto Cervo is EUR 150,320, against EUR 325,707 for a contracted 1 May to 31 October season | |
| Season services at category X are billed on top: EUR 8,190 refuse, EUR 9,380 water, EUR 51,800 electricity | |
| Above 55 m the marina charges by area, EUR 7.38 per square metre a day from 10 July to 5 September | |
| Enforcement | a Guardia di Finanza sweep of the Costa Smeralda and the archipelago had identified 100 undeclared foreign-flagged yachts worth over EUR 48 million by May 2026, with about EUR 23 million in fines assessed |
| The trigger is the Quadro RW asset declaration, which bites on ownership by an Italian tax resident, not on charter income | |
| Charter VAT | 22 per cent on the hire, with the length-based flat reductions withdrawn on 1 November 2020 |
| Discharge | Ordinanza 33/2026 conditions overnight anchoring in the park on a closed blackwater system |
| Nearest lift | Cantieri di Olbia, about 20 miles south, hauling to 600 tonnes |
La côte d'émeraude
La Costa Smeralda est née à partir des années 1960, quand un consortium mené par l'Aga Khan a transformé un morceau de côte granitique en station de luxe discrète. Porto Cervo en est devenu la capitale, avec une marina, un yacht club et un village de bâtiments bas posés entre les rochers. L'eau y est réputée limpide sur un sable pâle, ce qui donne son nom à la côte. Pour le yachting, la région associe une base à terre soignée à certaines des plus belles navigations de Méditerranée occidentale. Sa réputation d'exclusivité est méritée.
Juste au nord se trouve l'archipel de la Maddalena, un parc national d'îles de granit et d'eau éclatante qui est le vrai trésor de navigation. Les bouches de Bonifacio séparent la Sardaigne de la Corse un peu plus loin, ouvrant un second littoral à explorer. Porto Rotondo offre une alternative plus petite et élégante à Porto Cervo, plus au sud. Ensemble, ces éléments donnent au propriétaire un mélange de port glamour et de mouillage sauvage sur une zone compacte. C'est cette amplitude qui séduit.
La saison
La saison se concentre de juin à septembre, avec un pic marqué en août quand propriétaires italiens et internationaux arrivent ensemble. Juillet et août apportent l'eau la plus chaude et la scène sociale la plus animée, ainsi que les prix les plus élevés de Méditerranée pour une place à Porto Cervo. Juin et début septembre sont plus calmes et souvent plus agréables. L'intersaison récompense ceux qui peuvent être souples.
Le vent d'été dominant est le mistral, qui s'engouffre dans les bouches de Bonifacio et peut souffler fort plusieurs jours d'affilée. Il nettoie l'air et fait tomber l'humidité, et il détermine aussi quels mouillages sont utilisables un jour donné. Les équipages suivent la prévision et choisissent leur côté des îles en conséquence. Dans les périodes stables, l'archipel est aussi calme et clair que n'importe où dans la région.
Un port fermé en Sardaigne, et une nature d'îles de granit à courte distance au nord.
Ports et mouillages
La marina de Porto Cervo est la place amirale, siège du Yacht Club Costa Smeralda et hôte régulier de grandes régates. Porto Rotondo et les marinas autour d'Olbia offrent d'autres options avec un bon soutien et l'accès à l'aéroport. Au nord, la ville de La Maddalena et Palau tout près desservent l'archipel. Les places à Porto Cervo comptent parmi les plus recherchées et les plus chères de Méditerranée pendant les semaines de pointe.
L'archipel abrite les mouillages vedettes. Les eaux autour de Spargi et de Budelli offrent une eau claire sur le sable, et la Cala Coticcio, sur Caprera, est souvent comparée à un lagon tropical. La célèbre plage rose de Budelli est strictement protégée : le débarquement et le mouillage rapproché y sont interdits et le sable ne se regarde que de loin. La Cala di Volpe, sur la Costa Smeralda elle-même, est un mouillage classique sous son hôtel emblématique.
À terre et à flot
À terre, Porto Cervo offre des boutiques de créateurs, une poignée de restaurants réputés et une vie nocturne qui se prolonge tard en août. Le Yacht Club Costa Smeralda porte un calendrier de régates complet, avec la Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup et d'autres épreuves qui attirent chaque automne les grands voiliers du monde entier. Beach clubs et terrasses d'hôtel remplissent la scène sociale du jour. Pour les propriétaires qui régatent, la région est un vrai attrait au-delà de la navigation.
Sur l'eau, l'archipel est la raison de venir. Les journées passent à se baigner depuis le bateau, à emmener les tenders sur des plages désertes et à se déplacer d'île en île selon le vent. Le décor de granit et le sable pâle donnent à l'eau une clarté et une couleur inhabituelles. Comme le parc protège les fonds, le mouillage est encadré et parfois remplacé par des bouées. Le temps passé à flot tient ici davantage de la nature que de la station à courte distance au sud.
Notes pratiques
Le parc national de la Maddalena impose un permis pour les navires, acheté en ligne avec des tarifs proportionnels à la longueur, et il fait respecter des zones où le mouillage ou l'entrée sont restreints ou interdits. Le mouillage n'est autorisé que sur sable ou sur roche pour protéger l'herbier, les cuves de rétention doivent rester fermées dans le parc, et des bouées dédiées sont installées dans les baies fréquentées. Les règles sont mises à jour régulièrement, et les commandants doivent donc vérifier l'arrêté en vigueur avant d'arriver. Les zones strictes MA sont totalement interdites.
Porto Cervo et Olbia offrent un bon avitaillement, du carburant et un soutien technique, l'aéroport d'Olbia rendant simples les relèves d'équipage et d'invités. L'Italie est dans l'Union européenne, si bien que la TVA sur le charter et les formalités suivent le système italien et se traitent au mieux par un agent. Les places de haute saison doivent être réservées bien à l'avance. Les opérations de tender sont courantes, mais les équipages doivent avoir le permis du parc à bord et respecter scrupuleusement ses zones interdites.
Two regattas that set the calendar
The Yacht Club Costa Smeralda drives the calendar and it has become the reason a lot of owners come at all. The Giorgio Armani Superyacht Regatta, formerly the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta, runs 26 to 30 May 2026 and opens the season with the large sailing yachts. The Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup follows on 6 to 12 September 2026 in its thirty-sixth edition and is the most concentrated gathering of maxi and supermaxi racing anywhere in the world.
Around those two fixtures the social season is short and intense. The village and the beach clubs open properly in the second half of June, run flat out through August, and are winding down by the third week of September. Owners who arrive in the second week of June or the last week of September get the same water and the same anchorages with a fraction of the traffic. Berth pricing follows the same curve, and the difference between late June and mid August is substantial.
Olbia, and the August slot problem
Olbia Costa Smeralda is the gateway and it works well outside the peak. It handles around 28,000 aircraft movements a year, with scheduled traffic from the Italian mainland and much of Europe in summer, and it is about half an hour by road to Porto Cervo. In the first fortnight of August the slot position becomes genuinely difficult, and inbound windows in the morning hours are scarce enough that arrivals need to be planned weeks out. Cagliari and Alghero are too far south and west to help.
On the ground the Gallura roads are narrow and the August traffic between Olbia, Porto Rotondo and Porto Cervo is slow. Helicopter transfers are common between the airport and the resorts, and there is a landing point at Porto Cervo. For anything between the marina and the archipelago the tender is faster than the car by a wide margin.
The Piazzetta, the beach clubs and inland Gallura
Porto Cervo was built to a plan and it shows. The Piazzetta and the Promenade du Port hold the boutiques and the bars, the Cervo Hotel sits above them, and the Hotel Cala di Volpe a few miles south is the landmark of the coast. Dining runs from the hotel restaurants to Gianni Pedrinelli and Spinnaker, with Da Giovannino in Porto Rotondo the long-standing favourite of the summer crowd. Prices in August are set for the clientele and are not apologised for.
The nightlife is concentrated in a handful of venues and everyone ends up in the same three. Phi Beach at Forte Cappellini above Baja Sardinia is the sunset spot, the Billionaire Club above Porto Cervo is the late one, and Ritual, cut into the granite at Baja Sardinia, has been running for decades. Beyond that, inland Gallura is a different country, with cork oak, granite villages such as San Pantaleo and its Thursday market, and Vermentino di Gallura from the vineyards behind the coast. Guests who want culture should be told in advance that there is very little here.
Support, cost and the honest downside
Italy is in the EU, and charter operations carry Italian VAT and paperwork that an agent should handle. Fuel is available at Porto Cervo, Olbia and Portisco, and Olbia is the practical port for bunkering, stores and anything technical, since the Costa Smeralda marinas are service points and not yards. Provisioning at Porto Cervo is possible and expensive, and most boats bring stores up from Olbia. The park permit is carried aboard and it is checked.
The honest downsides are three. The season is very short, and an owner paying for a Mediterranean summer will find the Costa Smeralda gives him about six usable social weeks. The cost of a peak berth is the highest in the region and the increments are steep. And the mistral can take three or four days out of a two week cruise, which on a coast this small means the same sheltered anchorages every day. Owners who want variety should plan Corsica into the trip from the outset.
Pricing the most expensive published berth in the Mediterranean
The marina publishes, which settles the question. Porto Cervo Marina posts a daily rate card for the Porto Nuovo, and category X covers a hull up to 55 m LOA and 10 m beam, which is where a 50 m motor yacht sits. From 1 to 20 August 2026 that berth is EUR 5,437 a day. Across the wider peak from 10 July to 5 September it is EUR 3,780. The first nine days of July and the whole of September are EUR 3,438, June is EUR 1,569, May and October drop to EUR 386, and winter is EUR 150. Every figure is VAT inclusive, at the 10 per cent rate the list applies where permitted. Above 55 m the marina switches to a square metre basis, at EUR 7.38 per square metre a day for the 10 July to 5 September window, which puts a 70 m by 12 m hull at roughly EUR 6,200 a day (Porto Cervo Marina, Porto Nuovo 2026 daily rates, retrieved 28 July 2026).
A full August at the counter rate is 20 days at EUR 5,437 and 11 at EUR 3,780, or EUR 150,320 for the month before water, power or refuse. Those are billed separately on a long-term contract and are not small at category X: EUR 8,190 for refuse, EUR 9,380 for water and EUR 51,800 for electricity. The contracted alternative is EUR 325,707 for 1 May to 31 October or EUR 306,562 for 1 June to 30 September, which is why the boats already on the pontoon are not paying the August number and why a late arrival is. Against the rest of the Mediterranean, Capri's Porto Turistico charges EUR 3,580 a day for a 55 m by 10 m berth from 16 May to 15 September 2026, Saint-Tropez about EUR 3,280 a day for a 50 m by 9 m hull at its July peak, and Monaco EUR 1,258.80 a day for the 50 m to 55 m band. Of the Mediterranean marinas that publish a rate card at all, Porto Cervo's August is the highest by a clear margin. The claim survives being priced, which is more than most claims of its kind do.
What Italy checks in these marinas, and what it costs to be wrong
Northern Sardinia is where Italy enforces, and the enforcement is aimed at ownership rather than at charter. A Guardia di Finanza operation working Porto Cervo, Porto Rotondo, Poltu Quatu, Cannigione and the Maddalena archipelago had by May 2026 identified 100 undeclared foreign-flagged yachts with a combined value above EUR 48 million, all traced to Italian tax residents, with administrative fines assessed at around EUR 23 million. The trigger is the Quadro RW declaration, an annual reporting obligation on foreign-held movable assets that attaches to ownership and not to income, so a yacht that never carries a paying guest still has to appear on the return. Law 70/2026, the Legge Mare, added Article 26-ter to the pleasure craft code with effect from 10 May 2026, requiring foreign-flagged vessels up to 24 m owned by Italian residents to carry a certificate of fitness for navigation. None of that touches a genuinely foreign owner, and all of it explains why the marina office asks the questions it asks.
The ordinary rules run underneath. A non-EU flagged yacht in private use is on the 18 month EU temporary admission clock under Article 217(e) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446, and the clock covers the whole EU rather than Italy alone. Charter from an Italian port carries Italian VAT at 22 per cent on the hire, and the flat reductions keyed to hull length were withdrawn on 1 November 2020, so any reduction now has to be evidenced as actual navigation outside EU waters. Inside the La Maddalena park the permit is carried and checked, and buying it after entering costs 40 per cent more than buying it in advance. Ordinanza 33/2026 makes the new overnight anchoring permission conditional on a closed blackwater system, which is the one discharge rule on this coast a boarding officer will ask to see demonstrated rather than described. The nearest lift is Cantieri di Olbia, about 20 miles south, which quotes a hauling capacity to 600 tonnes and takes larger hulls afloat only.
À terre, accès et réservation
| Getting there | Olbia Costa Smeralda is the gateway, handling around 28,000 aircraft movements a year with summer scheduled traffic from the Italian mainland and much of Europe. Porto Cervo is about 30 to 35 km by road and 30 to 45 minutes outside the August traffic, with taxis quoted at roughly EUR 60 to EUR 80 and genuinely scarce in the first fortnight of August; Marina di Portisco is about 20 minutes from the terminal. Helicopter transfers are common and there is a landing point at Porto Cervo. The binding constraint is the airport itself: in the first half of August morning inbound slots at Olbia are scarce enough that arrivals need planning weeks ahead, and Cagliari and Alghero are too far to help. |
|---|---|
| Arriving by sea | Marina di Porto Cervo keeps a 24 hour radio watch on VHF 9 and also monitors 11 and 16. Porto Nuovo is +39 0789 905111, the Porto Vecchio office +39 0789 936666, night duty +39 335 1200241 and the Capitaneria +39 0789 94498. The desk runs 08:00 to 20:00 from June to August and 08:00 to 19:00 in May and September, with check-in at 16:30 and check-out at 10:30. The marina takes hulls to 160 m in 8 m of draft with no beam restriction, across roughly 700 berths of which about 100 are megayacht size. Marina di Portisco, in the Gulf of Cugnana, has 589 berths including 41 superyacht berths, to 90 m in up to 10 m of water. |
| How you actually reserve | The New Port takes a request through the marina's own booking form or IGY's online system, and states that a berth is not guaranteed without a confirmed reservation. The Porto Vecchio is not tariffed at all and every enquiry goes to [email protected]. In practice the August pontoon is already let before the season opens: a category X season contract for 1 May to 31 October 2026 is EUR 325,707, or EUR 306,562 for 1 June to 30 September, so the arriving yacht is competing for what the contract holders have not taken and pays the counter rate for it. |
| What a berth costs | Porto Cervo Marina publishes a full daily card for the Porto Nuovo, which almost nothing in this bracket does. Category X, a hull to 55 m LOA and 10 m beam, is EUR 5,437 a day from 1 to 20 August 2026, EUR 3,780 across the wider peak from 10 July to 5 September, EUR 3,438 for the first nine days of July and the whole of September, EUR 1,569 in June, EUR 386 in May and October and EUR 150 in winter, all VAT inclusive. Above 55 m the basis switches to area at EUR 7.38 per square metre a day in the 10 July to 5 September window, which puts a 70 m by 12 m hull near EUR 6,200 a day. A full August at the counter is EUR 150,320. |
| What the metered services cost | They are billed separately from the berth and they are not small. On a category X season contract the marina charges EUR 8,190 for refuse, EUR 9,380 for water and EUR 51,800 for electricity, so the services alone approach half a counter-rate August. Shore power is supplied at 16, 32, 63, 125 and 250 A, with water at the berths, waste collection, wifi and 24 hour security. Fuel pumps are on the quay at Porto Cervo, and Portisco and Olbia are the practical bunkering ports, Portisco's fuel service run by an outside operator. |
| The park permit, priced | No vessel may navigate, anchor or moor in the La Maddalena archipelago without a permit, bought online at lamaddalenapark.it. The 2026 daily card runs by length band at EUR 2.00 a metre to 10 m, EUR 3.00 from 10.01 to 24 m, EUR 4.50 from 24.01 to 35 m and EUR 5.00 from 35.01 m up, so a 50 m yacht pays EUR 250 a day. Fixed-period permits in the 40 to 200 m band are EUR 760 for seven days, EUR 1,440 for fifteen, EUR 2,560 for thirty and EUR 8,960 for a hundred and twenty. Buying online takes 5 per cent off, sailing vessels take 40 per cent off, and a boat that arrives without a permit pays the fee due plus 40 per cent. |
| Where you may stop, and how fast | Ordinanza 33/2026, effective 1 June 2026, removed the general ban on overnight anchoring in the park, so a night at anchor is now allowed where daytime anchoring is allowed, on sand and mud only, subject to a valid permit, a closed blackwater system and a cap on numbers in the busiest coves. Zone MA remains closed to all traffic, anchoring and stopping, which includes Cala Roto, the pink beach on Budelli. Anchoring inside marked buoy fields and on Posidonia is prohibited. Speed is capped at 7 knots within 500 m of the coast and 10 knots between 500 m and 1,000 m, and the permit is carried aboard and checked. |
| Eating, after dark, and the fixed dates | The Piazzetta and the Promenade du Port hold the boutiques, bars and restaurants a walk from the New Port, with Gianni Pedrinelli and Spinnaker close by and Da Giovannino at Porto Rotondo; the marina runs a ferry from Molo B at the Marina Nuova every 30 minutes from 09:00 with a last return at 01:00, between 20 June and 20 September. Phi Beach at Forte Cappellini above Baja Sardinia is the sunset room, the Billionaire above Porto Cervo and Ritual at Baja Sardinia the late ones. In 2026 the Giorgio Armani Superyacht Regatta ran 26 to 30 May and the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup runs 6 to 12 September, both from the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda. |
| What is NOT published | Porto Cervo publishes the New Port day rates as a downloadable document and nothing at all for the Porto Vecchio, which is quote-only on request. Porto Rotondo, Poltu Quatu and Marina di Olbia publish no superyacht tariff. Cantieri di Olbia, the nearest lift at about 20 miles south with hauling to 600 tonnes, publishes no lift price. No marina on this coast publishes a diesel price, so bunkering is a same-day quote through an agent. And nothing published anywhere tells an owner how many category X berths are actually free in August, which is the number that decides the trip. |
Ce que rapportent propriétaires et équipages
The tax sweep in these marinas is aimed at ownership, not at charter
The Guardia di Finanza air and naval unit at Cagliari closed Operation Red Jack after working Porto Cervo and the surrounding Sardinian ports, identifying 100 foreign-flagged vessels with a combined market value above EUR 48 million, all traceable to individuals tax-resident in Italy and none declared, with fines assessed at up to EUR 23 million. The investigation began in 2025 after a routine check at sea. The trigger is the Quadro RW asset declaration, which attaches to ownership rather than to income, so a yacht that never carries a paying guest still has to appear on the return.
L'Unione Sarda and Il Sole 24 OreOvernight anchoring returned in 2026, with a condition a boarding officer will test
Ordinanza 33/2026 replaced the general overnight ban with permission to stay the night where daytime anchoring is allowed, on sand and mud only, with a valid permit, a closed blackwater system and a cap on numbers in the busiest coves. Local agents read the ordinance as the framework for both the 2026 and 2027 seasons, and are clear that the blackwater condition is the one an inspector asks to see demonstrated rather than described.
Parco Nazionale dell'Arcipelago di La Maddalena, reported by Nautica AssistanceArriving without a park permit is the expensive way to buy one
The park's own tariff platform prices by length band and duration, returns 5 per cent for buying online and 40 per cent for sailing vessels, and park staff charge the fee due plus a 40 per cent surcharge to a boat that turns up without one. Inspections start early in the season and are routine in April and May, before most of the fleet has arrived.
Parco Nazionale dell'Arcipelago di La MaddalenaThe published August day rate is not what the boats on the pontoon are paying
The marina's own 2026 card puts category X at EUR 5,437 a day from 1 to 20 August, while a season contract for 1 May to 31 October is EUR 325,707. A full August at the counter, EUR 150,320, buys 31 days where the contract buys six months. The counter rate is a scarcity price for whatever the contract holders have not taken, which is why it reads as the highest in the Mediterranean.
Porto Cervo Marina 2026 rate cardThere is no independent account of the smaller Gallura marinas
Checked in August 2026, Porto Rotondo, Poltu Quatu and Marina di Olbia publish no superyacht tariff, and no published owner or captain account of their superyacht service could be found. An owner considering them as the sensible alternative to Porto Cervo is relying on an agent's word and his own inspection, not on anything reported.
Yotters desk, checked August 2026
Les points forts et les points de vigilance
Points forts
- A first rate cruising ground inside a thirty mile boxPorto Cervo to La Maddalena about 15 nautical miles, to Bonifacio about 25, to Olbia about 20. The boat can be at anchor off a granite island forty minutes after leaving the pontoon.
- The marina publishes, which almost nobody at this level doesA full seasonal day card by category, plus the season contract and the separate service charges, so an owner can price an August here before he commits to it. On the Riviera he cannot.
- Size and depth are not the constraintHulls to 160 m in 8 m of draft with no beam restriction, about 100 megayacht berths of roughly 700, and Portisco a few miles south with 41 superyacht berths in up to 10 m of water.
- Two fixtures that bring the fleet to the same waterThe Giorgio Armani Superyacht Regatta in late May and the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, 6 to 12 September 2026, both run by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda over the archipelago.
- The 2026 rule change gives the archipelago back at nightOrdinanza 33/2026 ended the general overnight anchoring ban that had pushed the fleet back to the marinas every evening, subject to permit, sand or mud bottom and a closed blackwater system.
Points de vigilance
- Six usable social weeks for a full season's costThe village and the beach clubs open properly in the second half of June and are winding down by the third week of September. Outside that Porto Cervo is beautiful and largely empty.
- The most expensive published August berth in the MediterraneanEUR 5,437 a day at category X from 1 to 20 August 2026, against EUR 3,580 at Capri's peak, about EUR 3,280 at Saint-Tropez and EUR 1,258.80 in Monaco.
- The metered services are a second bill nobody budgetsEUR 51,800 of electricity, EUR 9,380 of water and EUR 8,190 of refuse on a category X season contract, billed on top of the berth.
- The counter rate punishes the yacht without a contractA counter-rate August is EUR 150,320 for 31 days, against EUR 325,707 for a contracted 1 May to 31 October. The boats already on the pontoon are not paying the August number.
- The mistral can take four days out of a fortnightIt accelerates hard through the Strait of Bonifacio and decides which side of each island is usable, which on a coast this small means the same sheltered anchorages every day.
Pour qui: Les propriétaires qui cherchent un mélange de vie de port fermée, de grandes régates et de mouillages parmi les plus clairs de Méditerranée.