Portosole Marina (Sanremo)

What Portosole Actually Is, and Who Runs It Now

Portosole sits on the eastern edge of Sanremo, between the town's old municipal port and Punta San Martino, on the stretch of the Italian Riviera known as the Riviera dei Fiori. It was built and opened in the late 1970s, one of the first developments of its kind in Italy, at a scale that put it among the largest marinas in the Mediterranean from the start. Marina directories and its own current owner still describe it in those terms today, as a regular working base for both privately owned and charter megayachts, not just a resort with boats parked in front of it. The site grew alongside a resort development that now includes a yacht club, a spa hotel and a beach, so a berth here has always come with more than a pontoon attached to it.

Ownership has moved since the 1970s. Beatrice Cozzi Parodi's family group, which also built the marinas at Santo Stefano al Mare and San Lorenzo al Mare along the same coast, sold a controlling stake in Portosole Cnis to Reuben Brothers in December 2016 as part of a wider debt restructuring; the Cozzi Parodi name and Beatrice Cozzi Parodi herself have continued to appear in the marina's own press since. Giorgio Casareto took over as managing director in May 2024, after a 40-year concession renewal gave Reuben Brothers the runway to commit real money: a rebuilt breakwater, a pedestrianised inner promenade, solar power over the car parks and a redevelopment of the adjoining Old Harbour, all pitched as a four to five year programme. The marina has been awarded Italy's Blue Flag 18 times since 2006, which Casareto has called a daily standard rather than a one-off certificate.

Arriving By Sea: VHF, Depths and the Hazards

Portosole's own published position is 43 49' 07" N, 07 47' 15" E; Navily's berth listing gives an equivalent 43 49.10' N, 7 47.43' E. Mooring assistance answers on VHF channel 9, 24 hours a day; the Capitaneria di Porto di Sanremo, the port authority, works channel 16. Depths alongside run from 2.50 to 7 metres depending on the pontoon, a range the marina's own site, Yacht Digest and Navily all give consistently. The breakwater runs broadly east to west and shelters nine comb-like piers running off the main quay. Pagine Azzurre's pilot notes for the approach give a green light flashing every 5 seconds with a 4 nautical mile range on the head of the outer mole, and fixed red and green lights of 2 nautical miles each marking the inner piers, red to port and green to starboard on the way in.

Two numbers matter more than the light characteristics themselves: keep at least 25 metres off the flashing red light and at least 60 metres off the flashing green one, both of which mark submerged ledges rather than just the edge of the structure, a warning repeated independently by Yacht Digest. Inside the port, the speed limit is 3 knots, and the marina's access hours run 07:00 to 24:00 per Pagine Azzurre. Standard Italian port practice applies on entry: keep to the right of the channel and call ahead on channel 9 so a mooring boat or a marinaio can meet you at the berth rather than have you hunt for it among nine piers of moored megayachts.

The shipyard's own site manager quotes a 60 metre lifting limit. The shipyard's own marketing claims 100 metres. The shipyard's own press coverage lists an 86 metre refit. All three are Portosole, this year.

Booking a Berth, and an Ownership Model Rare Outside Italy

The marina's own site runs bookings through a MyMarinaClub widget, alongside a phone line and an email address for anything that needs a human. Several third-party platforms sell the same berths: mySea, Navily, Seasy, Yachtpass and MarinaReservation all carry live Portosole listings, which is as many independent booking routes as any marina on this coast offers. What makes Portosole different is what sits behind those bookings. Since the Cozzi Parodi era, a meaningful share of its berths have been sold as real property rather than let on an annual contract, a structure common in Italy and almost unheard of in France or Spain. Listings for sale run from roughly EUR 95,000 to EUR 320,000, the range driven mostly by size and by how many years remain on the underlying concession rather than by berth length alone; a category VIII berth, for instance, is quoted at 25 m by 6 m or 22 m by 5.6 m, a reminder that Italian marinas size a berth by beam as well as length, and a boat pays for whichever dimension actually fits the space. An owned berth still carries a running cost on top of the purchase price: one 2026 listing for an 18 m berth quotes an annual condominio charge of EUR 3,700, VAT included, separate from any seasonal mooring fee.

For a visiting yacht that only wants a night or a season, Portosole does not publish a current rate card, and the marina quotes on request rather than posting a public tariff sheet. The most complete numbers found for this entry were a 2017 quote given to a visiting yacht over the phone: EUR 63 a day or EUR 1,097 a month for 12 metres, rising through EUR 116/EUR 2,200 at 18 metres to EUR 124/EUR 2,750 at 20 metres, all plus 10 percent VAT and inclusive of water, electricity and a parking card. That figure is nine years old and should not be read as current pricing. What can be dated to this year is Navily's own booking estimate, which blends across the boats its community actually books here and lands at about EUR 112 a night in September 2026, and its live fuel-price listing, which had diesel at Portosole Energy at EUR 2.44 a litre in the same month. Anyone budgeting a season here in 2026 should request a written quote rather than working from either figure.

The Shipyard: Refits, a Syncrolift and a Capacity Claim That Does Not Add Up

The old boatyard on site was renamed Portosole Shipyard in 2023 and has grown quickly since, according to Daily Nautica's interview with the marina's leadership. Its headline asset is a 600 tonne syncrolift capable of lifting yachts to 60 metres with more than 5 metres of draught, a figure the interview flags as rare on this coast, where most Mediterranean yards cannot handle anything close to that draught. Emiliano Martino, the shipyard's site manager, is named as the person running day to day operations and is quoted directly in International Boat Industry's coverage of two recent projects.

Those two projects do not sit comfortably next to the 60 metre syncrolift figure. IBI News reported Portosole Shipyard completing bow reconstruction and extensive repainting on Kingdom, an 86 metre Benetti built in 1980 as Nabila for Adnan Khashoggi, later owned by Donald Trump and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, and separately a full repaint and teak deck replacement on DB9, a 52 metre Palmer Johnson. The yard's own marketing, meanwhile, describes capability up to 100 metres. None of the three figures, 60, 86 and 100 metres, is necessarily wrong on its own terms; a hull can be worked on afloat, with the syncrolift reserved for smaller boats, and the marketing copy may describe berthing and support rather than a lift. But nothing published reconciles them, and a buyer sending an 80 metre yacht to Sanremo for structural work should get the actual lift and drydock capacity confirmed in writing rather than from any one of these three sources alone.

Fuel, Chandlery and What Is Actually on the Quay

Portosole Energy sits between the marina and Sanremo's old port and reopened on 2 March 2026 under the marina's direct management after a period closed, per Pressmare's report at the time. It supplies tax-reduced SIF diesel for commercial use alongside standard diesel and petrol, with high-flow pumps rated to 500 litres a minute and berthing alongside for vessels to 100 metres. It keeps shorter hours than the marina itself, open Monday to Saturday from 08:00 to 12:00 and 14:00 to 17:00, and closed on Sundays, so a Sunday arrival should tank up the day before or after.

Beyond fuel, Reuben Brothers' own description of the site lists two shipyards and a mechanical workshop, a yacht brokerage centre, nautical agencies, a ship chandler, electronics outlets and a boat laundry, on top of more than 3,000 square metres of retail and office space. For crew and owners rather than boats, there are two bars and a restaurant-pizzeria with a panoramic terrace on site, plus the Yacht Club Internazionale Sanremo running courses and events, a beach with sunbed concessions and the four-star Hotel de Paris with a spa a short walk along Corso Trento e Trieste. A 24 km cycle path, a former coastal railway line converted to a bike route, runs from the marina gate east towards Imperia and is popular enough that at least one 2026 visitor names it as the way to see the coast without a car.

Getting There, and Getting Into Sanremo Once You Have Arrived

Nice Cote d'Azur airport is the practical choice for most owners and charter guests, about 65 km by road and roughly an hour and five minutes' drive on the A8 motorway, per Transfeero's own transfer timings. Genoa's Cristoforo Colombo airport is further, about 143 km and closer to an hour and forty five minutes to two hours depending on traffic, and is mainly useful for connections Nice does not carry. Sanremo has its own railway station on the coastal line linking Genoa, Ventimiglia and Nice, with a journey of roughly 1h42 to Genoa and 1h26 to Nice on the fastest services, according to Trainline's published timetables; the line runs underground through the town centre, a modernisation completed in the early 2000s.

Inside Sanremo, Portosole is not the passerelle-to-piazza experience some Riviera marinas offer. Multiple 2026 owner reviews on Navily put the walk to the town centre and the Casino at about 20 minutes on foot, with more than one reviewer specifically calling it a bit of a walk rather than a short stroll. The reward at the end of it is real: Sanremo's Casino, an Art Nouveau building opened in 1905 and one of only four licensed gaming houses left in Italy, sits on the seafront a few streets in from the water, and beyond it climbs La Pigna, the medieval old town of stacked lanes and porticoes that predates the marina by centuries. Restaurants in the town run from Michelin-listed rooms to street pizza, a range one repeat visitor specifically praised after several stays.

The Yachting Calendar Built Around This Marina

The MYBA Charter Show is Portosole's marquee date: the 2026 edition ran 27 to 30 April, its 36th, with more than 60 charter yachts registered from 16 to 85 metres and, per the show's own figures for 2025, more than 80 yachts moored and over 600 scheduled broker visits across four days. A three-year agreement between MYBA and Portosole, reported by SuperYacht.eu, guarantees Sanremo the show's home through 2028. The Monaco Yacht Show follows every September at Port Hercule, this year scheduled for 23 to 26 September with more than 120 superyachts on display; Portosole sits roughly 17 nautical miles east of Monaco by direct line, close enough that boats routinely move between the two events under their own power rather than by transporter.

On land, Sanremo runs two fixed dates most owners will recognise even if they are not yacht events. The Sanremo Music Festival, Italy's biggest television song contest, fills the Ariston theatre a few streets from the marina every February, most recently 24 to 28 February 2026 for its 76th edition. And the Milano-Sanremo cycling classic, the longest one-day race on the professional calendar at just under 300 km, finishes on Via Roma by the Casino each spring, 21 March in 2026, bringing the whole seafront to a standstill for an afternoon. Any of the three is worth checking against a cruising itinerary before booking a berth for that week, since rates and availability tighten around all of them.

What Owners on the Pontoon Actually Say

Reviews collected by Navily through September 2026, all from named owners and crew who actually stayed, are consistently positive on the essentials. Christel, aboard the motor yacht Sankt Anton, called it beautiful and a real change of scenery and singled out a restaurant in the town centre as exceptional. Michael, on the sailing yacht KaPaKap, described it as a large and very nice marina with port captains who were very friendly and helpful. Martin, aboard the 15.4 m Supergirl, praised courteous and competent staff and a laid back city with lots of flair. Ian, on the sailing yacht Freya, has returned more than once and rates it a fantastic stop once you solve the distance into town, in his case by hiring e-bikes to use the converted railway cycle path east along the coast towards Imperia, past small towns he called very picturesque.

The same set of reviews is where the marina's weaker points actually surface, named rather than inferred. Ian, for all his praise, flagged that the men's toilet block perhaps needs a bit of an update. Martin, whose Supergirl runs to over 15 metres, noted that some boat berths are a bit cramped, an odd complaint at a marina that advertises capacity to 90 metres but a real one from an owner who was actually there. And Wolfgang, aboard the sailboat Gassilange, reported an unfriendly member of staff in the office over being barefoot, the kind of front-of-house inconsistency that does not show up in any of the marina's own marketing but does show up, named and dated, in its own review record.

Pour qui: An owner or buyer who wants a genuine superyacht base within a short run of Monaco, with real haul-out and refit capability on site and the option to buy a berth outright rather than rent one indefinitely, and who does not mind a 20 minute walk into old Sanremo rather than a passerelle onto the piazza.