The region is called Liguria and Tuscany, but the fleet is almost entirely Tuscan. Of the 185 boats, 142 are on the Tuscan coast — Cala de' Medici, Scarlino, San Vincenzo, Salivoli, Punta Ala — and only 15 are in Liguria proper, at Porto Mirabello in La Spezia. If you are picturing a Portofino week, check which base holds your boat first.
What Tuscany gives you instead is the best archipelago in Italy for actual sailing. This is the most sail-led region in the country: 152 of the 185 boats are monohulls, eighty-two per cent, against just 25 catamarans. Rates start at €750, the lowest floor in Italy. The islands — Elba, Capraia, Giglio, Pianosa, Montecristo — sit in open water with real passages between them, and the coast behind them has more marinas per mile than anywhere else in the country.
From La Spezia the draw is different and more regulated: the Cinque Terre. The five villages are a national park and the water in front of them is a marine protected area where anchoring is prohibited outright. A small network of moorings serves boats under 25 metres, and vessels over 24 metres cannot go in at all. The park is zoned — Zone A, about five per cent of the total, is a full reserve closed to boats; Zone B is a buffer where professional fishing is banned but you may transit at moderate speed; Zone C, around 4,000 hectares, permits regulated fishing and sailing. The Coast Guard does ask whether you have a permit for the mooring you are on.
Both halves sit inside the Pelagos sanctuary for Mediterranean marine mammals, which is why fin whales and striped dolphins are a realistic sighting on the Elba and Capraia passages rather than a lucky one.
The fleet averages 13.3 metres with a 2017 build year, and 184 of 185 boats change over on Saturday.
