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Galicia · O Grove / Sanxenxo, Rias Baixas · O Salnés · O Grove / Sanxenxo

Praia da Lanzada

also known as Playa de A Lanzada, La Lanzada, A Lanzada

advanced onlyhigh crowds

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

On this page

Wind
- Month by month
Forecast
Water
Level
The scene
Launch
- Rescue
Hazards
Rules & access
Schools
Tips
Getting there
Photos
FAQ

Nearby Praia do Bao 11 km · Praia da Canteira 11 km · Praia das Sinas 15 km · Praia de Lourido 17 km · Praia de Cesantes 26 km · Praia do Vao 28 km · Praia da Aguieira 34 km · straight-line distance

SeasonJan, Feb, Mar, Oct, Nov, Decthe months riders and schools name How windy15-25 knsynoptic LaunchAbout 2,500 m of beach with roughly 20 m of average width, so length is never the constraint. What restricts the practical launch is the summer bathing zoning, the buoyed nautical access channel, the protected dunes behind, and how far the tide has come in.access rules on record, below Wateropen ocean beach19°C in summer · 16 things riders flag LevelIntermediate to advancedwith a caveat, in the Level section Schools4named at this spot From the airportin words under Getting thereVigo Airport (VGO)

On the clock

16:00 · 19:00

Afternoon-weighted. Kiteable hours rise from about 20-23% through the morning to 34-36% between 16:00 and 19:00, then ease after sunset. A frontal system overrides the pattern and can blow all night. Indicative.

The marks are the clock times the record names, laid on a 24-hour day. The bar between the first and the last covers those hours; it is not a promise of wind.

A Lanzada is a long exposed Atlantic beach on the PO-308 between O Grove and Sanxenxo, and it has nothing in common with the sheltered ria teaching spots at Cesantes and Lourido.

It works on south, southwest, west and northwest wind with swell, and the best-supported season is autumn and winter, when the synoptic systems arrive and the bathing crowd has gone. A competing seasonal picture puts it at April to October and especially July to September, which conflicts with the local view, so check before you plan a trip around it.

Summer access runs through a buoyed nautical channel, and the dunes behind the beach are protected bird habitat. Wind speed is not published for this beach and neither are the tide windows, so read the swell as carefully as the wind. Skip A Lanzada if you are learning, because shorebreak, waves and open-ocean drift are the character of the place.

Rescue outside summer lifeguard hours is unconfirmed.

The wind

Direction

wind blows away from land — rescue cover matters here

Kite sizes

5678910111213141516

metres · typical quiver highlighted

Character

synoptic

fills in: Afternoon-weighted. Kiteable hours rise from about 20-23% through the morning to 34-36% between 16:00 and 19:00, then ease after sunset. A frontal system overrides the pattern and can blow all night. Indicative.

Typical strength

15-25 kn on a decent frontal day. Reanalysis 2019-2024 at a sea cell off the beach puts about 26% of hours at or above 12 kn, 13% at or above 15 kn, 6% at or above 18 kn and 2% above 22 kn, which makes this the windiest beach of the Rias Baixas group by a clear margin. December and March are the strongest months, September the weakest. Indicative, no local measurement.

Best documented for autumn and winter frontal or synoptic wind with swell. The beach is not usually kited in summer, because good sailing conditions rarely happen then.

Autumn and winter is the documented season, and January to March plus October to December carry the frontal wind this beach is ridden on. Summer is not windless: reanalysis gives July about as many hours at or above 12 kn as October. Direction is the likely catch.

N and NNE together supply roughly a third of all strong hours across the year and both blow offshore here, and the local view is that summer rarely delivers a usable session. The month-by-month direction split was not computed, so treat that explanation as unconfirmed. Indicative monthly pattern, no local measurement.

The quiver, in words

For a 75-85 kg rider in waves: a 9 m and a 12 m cover most autumn and winter days, with a 7 m for a deep front and a 14 m only for the marginal edge. Indicative sizing derived from the wind range, not from local rider reports.

Direction to shore

The beach runs NNW-SSE and faces WSW. SW is close to square onshore and W arrives just off it; S and SSW come in side-onshore along the strand; NW is side-onshore from the northern end. N and NE blow straight offshore, so a forecast with strength in that quadrant is not a session here.Shore angle derived from the mapped shoreline.

Dominant direction

S, SW, W and NW.

Forecast

Month by month

Jan, riders' month59
Feb, riders' month54
Mar, riders' month73
Apr60
May70
Jun57
Jul77
Aug74
Sep64
Oct, riders' month72
Nov, riders' month69
Dec, riders' month54

per cent of the month at force 4 or more

Ringed months are the ones riders and schools name: Jan, Feb, Mar, Oct, Nov, Dec.

13Jan14°
13Feb14°
16Mar14°
13Apr15°
14May16°
12Jun18°
14Jul18°
13Aug18°
13Sep17°
15Oct19°
14Nov17°
13Dec15°

avg knots per month · water °C below · season highlighted

Month	Force 4+	Knots	From	Air	Water
Jan	59%	13.2 kt	NE	11°C	14.2°C
Feb	54%	12.6 kt	NE	11.3°C	13.6°C
Mar	73%	15.7 kt	SSW	12.3°C	14°C
Apr	60%	13.4 kt	NNE	13.9°C	15.4°C
May	70%	13.7 kt	NNE	16.4°C	15.7°C
Jun	57%	12.3 kt	NNE	18.5°C	17.7°C
Jul	77%	13.5 kt	NNE	20.7°C	17.7°C
Aug	74%	13 kt	NNE	20.8°C	17.6°C
Sep	64%	12.6 kt	NNE	18.5°C	16.8°C
Oct	72%	15.3 kt	S	17.3°C	18.6°C
Nov	69%	14.4 kt	NE	14.7°C	16.8°C
Dec	54%	13.1 kt	SSW	11.7°C	15.2°C

modelled

A weather model's cell over this place, not a station on it. Good for comparing places, weaker for one beach.

Modelled from weather reanalysis on a 10–25 km grid (2022-2024), not a ground station: reliable for trade and synoptic winds, understates thermal sea breezes and valley winds. The typical daily max and the direction are columns of the table above, month by month. Highlighted months are the riding season from the spot record.

ERA5 reanalysis grid point (modelled) · Open-Meteo historical weather API — ECMWF ERA5/ERA5-Land reanalysis, not a ground station · 2022-2024

The water

Type

open ocean beach

Tides

Full Atlantic tide, twice a day. Modelled sea level over three months gave a daily range of 1.04-3.60 m, median about 2.26 m.On a beach with only around 20 m of average dry width, the low-water sand is far wider than the high-water sand and near the top of a spring tide the usable strip shrinks back toward the dune line. No tide window for riding has been published. Modelled, no local gauge reading.

Temperature

19°C summer · 14°C winter

Wetsuit

Water around Vigo and the Rias Baixas runs roughly 18-20 C in late summer and 13-15 C in winter. On an exposed Atlantic beach ridden mostly in autumn and winter a full wetsuit is the sensible default, but exact local thickness guidance was not found.

Currents

No kite-specific current data was found. On an exposed Atlantic beach the documented hazards are surf and shorebreak rather than flat-water currents.

14–19°C water

A long exposed Atlantic beach between O Grove and Sanxenxo. It is a wave-oriented kitesurf spot, not a sheltered learning bay.

Your level

not for beginners hereintermediateadvanced

A wave beach. It suits intermediate and advanced riders comfortable with surf, shorebreak and open-ocean conditions; it is not documented as a beginner school spot.

The scene

What riders come here for

wavesstraplessfreeride in surfautumn/winter sessions

A major Rias Baixas tourist beach in July and August. Outside the bathing peak it goes back to being a local wave and wind spot.

Launch and rules

three ways on to the water, and what each one asks of you

With a school or a boat

4 schools name this spot

See who they are

On your own

Room to launch: About 2,500 m of beach with roughly 20 m of average width, so length is never the constraint. What restricts the practical launch is the summer bathing zoning, the buoyed nautical access channel, the protected dunes behind, and how far the tide has come in.

access rules on record

Somewhere else

Praia do Bao, 11 km

Praia do Bao Praia da Canteira Praia das Sinas

Every spot within 40 km is on the map at the top of this page, with its distance under it.

Rescue

No kite-specific rescue. A Lanzada carries Blue Flag status and a summer lifeguard service as a bathing beach; outside the bathing season nothing is confirmed, which covers most of the months this beach is actually ridden. The emergency number is 112, the coordinating line for a coastal emergency in Galicia.

Launch

Launch from the long sandy Atlantic beach, respecting dune protection and summer beach zoning. A regulated nautical access channel and buoyed zone apply in summer.

Space

About 2,500 m of beach with roughly 20 m of average width, so length is never the constraint. What restricts the practical launch is the summer bathing zoning, the buoyed nautical access channel, the protected dunes behind, and how far the tide has come in.

Hazards riders report 16

waves
tourist beach in summer
protected dunes
Atlantic waves and shorebreak
tourist beach use in summer
protected dunes and nesting bird habitat
regulated summer nautical access channel
open-ocean exposure
possible conflict between summer bathing activity and kite access
open-ocean exposure and downwind drift on a beach with no lee
N and NE wind blows offshore on this beach
tourist beach use in July and August
protected dunes and nesting bird habitat behind the beach
regulated summer nautical access channel and buoyed bathing zone
tidal range of 2-3.6 m narrowing the dry beach near high water
no confirmed rescue outside the summer lifeguard season, which is most of the kiting year

Rules & access

2026: A Lanzada is regulated in summer with a buoyed zone and a marked nautical access channel for entry and exit; no municipal text or map for the current season is published either. The frame above it is national: article 73 of the Reglamento General de Costas (Real Decreto 876/2014) prohibits recreational sailing and any craft moved by sail or motor inside a properly buoyed bathing zone and requires launching and beaching through marked channels, and where a stretch is not buoyed the bathing zone counts as the 200 m of water nearest the shore on a beach, with a three-knot limit inside it. The beach also holds Blue Flag status in season, and the dune system behind it is protected habitat.

Access rules drift faster than anything else we hold — check locally, and propose an edit if this has changed.

Rider tips

Plan for autumn or winter unless the local forecast and an access check back a summer session.
Stay off the dune fencing and the bird signage; use the established beach accesses.
In summer, find the buoyed nautical channel and keep clear of the bathing zones.
Do not take a first lesson here; use the sheltered ria spots for that.
Check the swell as carefully as the wind, because the beach is wave-exposed.
A summer forecast showing 18 kn from the north is offshore here. Read the direction before you drive.
Late afternoon is the best-odds window on a non-frontal day; the wind builds through it and eases after dark.
Time the launch against the tide: near high water on springs there is very little dry sand to lay a kite on.

Getting there

Airport

Vigo Airport (VGO); Santiago de Compostela Airport (SCQ) is another practical Galicia gateway.

Route

A Lanzada is on the PO-308 coastal road between Sanxenxo and O Grove; a car is the practical option for kite gear and for checking nearby beaches.

Transfer

About 45-65 minutes by car from Vigo Airport and about 60-80 minutes from Santiago de Compostela Airport to the O Grove/Sanxenxo area, depending on traffic; exact launch parking time is unconfirmed.

Cost level

medium to high in July-August, medium outside peak summer

Staying

Stay in O Grove, Sanxenxo, Portonovo or Cambados. Summer accommodation demand is high in Sanxenxo/O Grove; no kite-specific lodging at the beach is listed.

No-wind days

Surfing/bodyboarding at A Lanzada when conditions suit, O Grove seafood, Cambados wine tourism, Combarro, coastal walks, birdwatching around the protected dune/wetland area, and boat trips in the Rias Baixas.

Photos

Lanzada 36-02ar — Lameiro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

FAQ

Is Praia da Lanzada suitable for beginners?

No, it is a wave-oriented beach with shorebreak and open-ocean drift risk, better suited to intermediate and advanced riders.

When is the best time to kite at Praia da Lanzada?

Autumn and winter, roughly October to March, are the best-documented season, when swell and synoptic wind are most reliable. One source instead lists April to October, so check conditions locally before planning around that window.

What is the wind like?

South, southwest, west and northwest directions work, driven by synoptic weather systems rather than a daily thermal.

Are there rules or restricted zones?

A regulated nautical access channel operates in summer, and the beach has protected dunes and bird habitat that riders should respect.

Last updated: August 2026