S/V Spindrift

The family leg, by the numbers.

Sarah, Hannah, and Sam fly out of Palma on Friday morning. The family leg of S/V Spindrift‘s spring wraps there. Bob arrives Saturday, Thebaut on the first of June, and a couple of days after that we point the bow at France for the move to Cap d’Agde.

From Cap d’Agde, S/V Spindrift goes up on the hard for the summer, and we head home to LBI for June, July, and August. Before that, the spring in numbers. Sarah and I touched down in Portugal on March 23rd. Sarah, Hannah, and Sam fly back to EWR on May 29th. Sixty-eight days in between.

By the numbers

• 68 days aboard, March 23 to May 29.
• Over 1,200 nautical miles under the keel. For the East Coast crowd: roughly LBI to Key West, give or take a current.
• At least 30 ports and anchorages between Lagos and Palma.
• 3 countries plus Gibraltar, which is its own customs territory and the whole reason we went there.
• 1 EU Temporary Admission clock reset, courtesy of that detour.
• 3 overnight passages and a stack of long day hops.
• 1 DANA, recorded at sixty-two knots at the dock in Adra.
• Countless loaves of Sarah’s sourdough, and the meals and memories to match.
• 1 loaf in particular: warm out of the oven in the dark on the Garrucha-to-Ibiza overnight, butter and salt, twenty miles offshore.

Who was aboard

Sarah for all of it. Sam and Hannah for the Balearic stretch. Rick, Lisa, Chris, and Julia flew into Mallorca on April 19th and were aboard for twelve days. Andratx, Sóller, Cabrera, Porto Colom, S’Arenal, back to Andratx. Brandon, Sam’s boyfriend, came out in early May for the run down to Cabrera, Portals Vells, and into Palma. Liv and Jordon, Hannah’s friends, joined for the Sóller-Sa Calobra loop and flew out May 24th. Six aboard at the high-water mark, anchored under the cliffs of the Tramuntana, and S/V Spindrift didn’t feel small.

The route

Lagos, on the hard at Sopromar. We took our time getting east, leg by leg from Lagos all the way to Ibiza, waiting on the right weather window before each move. Old rule: sailing to a schedule is dangerous. We splashed on the 26th, slipped lines on the 28th, and worked our way along. Faro. Puerto Sherry. Through the Strait to Alcaidesa Marina under the Rock. Out of Gibraltar with the TA paperwork stamped. Up the Costa del Sol to Adra. North to Garrucha. An overnight to San Antonio, Ibiza. East to Port d’Andratx, Mallorca, and the Balearics opened up.

From Andratx we worked the islands in two loops. The April loop with Rick and the crew: Sóller, Cabrera, Porto Colom, S’Arenal, and back. The May loop with Sam, Hannah, Brandon, then Liv and Jordon: Cabrera again, Portals Vells, Moll Vell in Palma, Sóller a second time, the west-coast anchorages of Sa Foradada and Sa Calobra, the SW corner at Sant Elm, and into Pantalan Mediterraneo. Where I’m writing this.

Notable

S/V Spindrift was the MVP of the spring. She kept us safe and rode out everything Mother Nature threw at us. Adra was the hardest stretch, sixty-two knots at the dock and Saharan dust on every horizontal surface. But every stop had its moments, and the good ones outweighed the rough ones. Cabrera, permit-only park, one canteen, a sardine sandwich on crusty bread, a hike up to the Castell, the kind of silence after dark you can’t find on the Spanish coast. Sa Calobra, cliffs straight out of the sea, no other masts in the cove, the chain visible the whole way down to the hook.

What’s next

Boréal will have S/V Spindrift on display at the Cannes Yachting Festival, September 8 to 13, 2026. Vieux Port and Port Canto, the whole length of the Croisette. Sarah and I fly back to Nice on September 7th and will be at the show for the week. If you’re anywhere in the south of France, come find us on the dock and say hello. After the festival we point east: Corsica, Sardinia, and down the west coast of Italy.

Festival info: cannesyachtingfestival.com

Photos