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Stintino

Northwest Sardinia · Tàttari/Sassari

also known as La Pelosa, Spiaggia della Pelosa, Spiaggia del Gabbiano, L'Approdo

Part of Northwest Sardinia →

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

beginner-friendlyhigh crowds

On this page

The spot
Wind
Forecast
Month by month
Water
Level
The scene
Launch
Schools
Tips
Getting there
Photos
FAQ

Riding essentials

Season

Jan, Feb, Apr, Nov, Dec

Months riders and schools name

How windy

10-20 kts

Character: synoptic

Room to launch

tight

access rules on record, below

Water

mixed

25.6 °C in summerIt depends entirely on which launch and which wind

Hazards

Reported by riders

Level

Beginner to advanced

With a caveat: see Your level

BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced

Crowds

high crowds · busy Jul Aug Jun Sep

Schools

named at this spot

From the airport

41 min

Alghero-Fertilia Airport (AHO)

When it fills in

The modelled wind-days table puts the afternoon best in every month. No local thermal onset time is on record.

Stintino has no other spot on this map within 40 km of it, and none other in Northwest Sardinia. straight-line distance

Backup spotsWhere riders go when the wind doesn't work here.

Porto Pollo
La Maddalena archipelagono page yet
Rena Majoreno page yet
Le Salineno page yet
Ezzi Mannuno page yet
Porto Ferrono page yet

The spot

Everyone calls this spot La Pelosa, but the launch you actually use is Spiaggia del Gabbiano or L'Approdo just south of the swimming beach, or Le Saline up the road. The setting is hard to beat: shallow clear water over white sand, Torre della Pelosa on its rock, Isola Piana and Asinara taking the weather off the bay.

Wind

The wind is the problem. Reported figures are 12.3% wind days a year and a 7.2 kt year-round average, so sessions land on particular Grecale, Levante, Maestrale or Tramontana days rather than on demand. When Grecale or Levante come in hard, the postcard turns into choppy, rough, wave-affected water with rocks in it, and that is an intermediate-to-advanced day.

Beginners and summer

Beginners can use the shallow setup only in moderated, well-supervised conditions. Summer is the hardest part operationally: La Pelosa is capped and paid, and the 2026 bathing rules keep kites out of any water with swimmers in it.

Planning

Come with a car and a list of alternatives and treat this as an opportunistic Sardinian session, not a kite holiday base.

The wind

locals call it Grecale, Levante, Maestrale, Tramontana

Direction

cross-on

Direction to shore

cross-on

Dominant direction

NE-E for the classic La Pelosa and Gabbiano session; SE is also given as prevalent, and NW works flat, while the modelled data makes W the dominant direction.

Kite sizes

789101112131415

metres · typical quiver highlighted

The quiver, in words

9-13m

Character

synoptic

When it fills in: see above ↑

Typical strength

10-20 kts to get the spot working. A stronger Grecale or Levante session can exceed 30 kts and turn rough.

Variable and often gusty, though that is disputed: very gusty and challenging in one rating, constant in another, and the contradiction is recorded rather than resolved.

Only 12.3% of the days in a year are wind days in the modelled record, the highest monthly percentages falling in January, November, December, April and February. Other guidance puts the best window at March-December instead, with Maestrale better in autumn, winter and spring and Levante better in spring and summer, and moderate Maestrale and Scirocco are also promoted for spring and summer. Summer is also when the beach access is tightest and the swimmer pressure worst.

Forecast

Live forecast

Windguru Windfinder Windy

Month by month

12 ktJan
11 ktFeb
11 ktMar
10 ktApr
8 ktMay
8 ktJun
7 ktJul
8 ktAug
9 ktSep
10 ktOct
11 ktNov
12 ktDec

avg knots per month · season highlighted

Modelled monthly averages. Highlighted: the months riders and schools name (Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Apr).

Modelled from weather reanalysis on a 10–25 km grid, not a ground station: reliable for trade and synoptic winds, understates thermal sea breezes and valley winds.

Every figure, month by monthKnots · Wind from · Air

Month	Knots	Wind from	Air
Jan	11.6 kt	W	10.3 °C
Feb	11.3 kt	W	10.3 °C
Mar	10.6 kt	W	11.7 °C
Apr	10 kt	W	13.6 °C
May	8.3 kt	W	17.2 °C
Jun	7.7 kt	W	20.8 °C
Jul	7.4 kt	W	23.3 °C
Aug	7.5 kt	W	23.6 °C
Sep	8.5 kt	W	21.1 °C
Oct	9.6 kt	W	18.3 °C
Nov	11.3 kt	W	14.4 °C
Dec	11.9 kt	W	11.7 °C

How this is modelledmodelled

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

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.

Stintino (weatherspark modelled climatology) · Weatherspark (NASA/NOAA MERRA-2 reanalysis-based model climatology, not a physical anemometer)

The water

Type

mixed

Standing depth

Shallow and calm behind Isola Piana and Asinara, over a bottom that shelves gradually. It is not all sand: rock, and sand-and-rock, are reported on the bottom too.

Tides

Small Mediterranean range in the short-term tables checked: roughly 0.2-0.6 m for Stintino-La Pelosa between 27 August and 12 September 2026.

Temperature

25.6 °C summer · 14.6 °C winter

Wetsuit

Shorty or boardshorts in July-August for many riders; 4/3 mm in winter, with 3/2 mm useful in the shoulder months. Carrying a wetsuit year-round is the local recommendation.

Currents

No authoritative local current data was found. The modelled data warns of strong currents around the rocky points, so treat the headlands and the reefs with caution.

Conditions

It depends entirely on which launch and which wind. The protected part of the La Pelosa bay can be very shallow and calm; in a stronger Grecale or Levante the same coast is choppy, wavey and at times very rough. Rocks emerge in places.

Your level

BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced

Beginner suitability is conditional. Shallow sandy sections and cross-on or onshore wind help, and the spot carries a beginner rating, but a Grecale above 30 kts, very rough water, rocks and the seasonal beach restrictions make it inappropriate for unsupervised novices on those days.

The scene

What riders come here for

freeridebig airwavescenic sessions

Who it suitsbeginner

In summer La Pelosa is a capped-access tourist beach and the usable kite launches work better outside peak swimmer hours, or at the less restricted beaches nearby. Off season it goes quiet and local, and the sessions follow the weather.

Launch and rules

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

With a school or a boat

1 school names this spot

See who they are

On your own

Room to launch: tight

Read the access rules

Somewhere else

No neighbour on record

No other spot in the atlas sits within reach of this one.

Rescue

No kite-specific rescue and no safety boat at La Pelosa, Gabbiano or L'Approdo. Concessioned beaches must run a lifeguard for their whole opening period, and in any case between the third week of May and the third week of September; the free beach and the kite launches south of La Pelosa get none of that.

At sea the Coast Guard blue emergency number is 1530, 112 on land. Treat the whole area as self-rescue, which matters most on the strong Grecale and Levante days when the sea gets rough and the rocks are close.

Launch

Do not assume the famous La Pelosa swimming beach is the normal kite launch in season. The start is farther south at Spiaggia del Gabbiano, or at L'Approdo near the Windsurfing Center Stintino. Expect sand with some rocks in it, and in the bathing season use only the legal access.

Hazards riders report 18 reported

Wind

offshore reef structures
Strong or very onshore Grecale can make the sea very rough and push riders toward the beach
Reef and rocky structures offshore, visible in the modelled and mapped data.
Strong or very onshore Grecale can make the sea very rough and push riders towards the beach.

Crowds and zones

Rocks emerging in some areas of the riding zone
Very high tourist and swimmer density around La Pelosa in summer
Rocks emerging in some areas of the riding zone.
Very high tourist and swimmer density around La Pelosa in summer, on top of the capped paid access.
No kite rescue and no safety boat; the free-beach launches sit outside any lifeguard cover.

Bottom

rocky outcrops/headlands to the north
Rocky outcrops and jagged headlands around the northern side of La Pelosa
Sand-and-rock bottom rather than pure sand everywhere
Rocky outcrops and jagged headlands around the northern side of La Pelosa.
Sand-and-rock bottom rather than pure sand everywhere.

Waves and currents

strong currents near the rocky points
Strong currents near the rocky points, and reef structures offshore.

Protected areas and rules

Bathing-season swimmer zones: the 2026 Alghero maritime district ordinance reserves 200 m from sandy beaches and 100 m from rocky coasts for bathing and bans windsurf and kitesurf transit there, except through authorised arrangements or corridors.
Bathing zones: 200 m off sandy beaches and 100 m off high rocky coast are reserved for swimmers, and kitesurf transit there is forbidden with no corridor named on this coast.

Rules & access

1 min read

2026: La Pelosa access is reservation-only from 15 May to 15 October 2026, with 1,500 places a day; daily or period tickets cost EUR 3.50 per person, children under 12 are excluded from the booking, and access checks run 08:00-18:00.

Bathing zone rules

The coast up to and including Capo Falcone falls under the Alghero maritime district's 2026 bathing-safety ordinance, no. 22 of 15 May 2026: a 200 m band off sandy beaches and 100 m off high rocky coast is reserved for bathing, and in the bathing zones and anywhere else people are swimming the transit of any craft, windsurf and kitesurf explicitly included, is always forbidden, with exceptions only for oar-powered beach craft and state or rescue vessels.

Launch corridors under that ordinance are created by the municipality on free beaches or by concession holders in front of their concessions, and are framed for motor, sail and sailboard craft; the ordinance names no kite corridor and no kite zone anywhere on this coast, and lists nothing specific to La Pelosa or Gabbiano.

Bathing season

Sardinia's bathing season is defined as the whole year, split into a summer season from 1 April to 31 October and a winter season from 1 November to 31 March, while the compulsory lifeguard window runs from the third week of May to the third week of September.

In practice, a legal session here means water with no bathers in it.

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

Schools that ride here

Rider tips

Ask a local school where to launch before you rig: the La Pelosa beach access rules are not the same thing as the Gabbiano, L'Approdo or Le Saline launches.
In Grecale or Levante, reassess your level honestly: very rough water and winds over 30 knots are reported here.
Bring footwear and take care walking in the shallows; the bottom is rocky or sand-and-rock in places.
In the 2026 controlled-access period, reserve La Pelosa if you intend to enter the protected beach area, and do not count on finding space among the swimmers.
Have a car so you can switch to Le Saline, Ezzi Mannu, Porto Ferro or farther Sardinian spots when the wind direction or the rules make La Pelosa impractical.
No kite transit where people are swimming: ride out of season, ride early, or ride at a beach with an empty waterline, and save 1530, because nobody here is coming to get you.

Getting there

Airport

Alghero-Fertilia Airport (AHO)

Route

A rental car is the practical option for kiting, because public transport connections on Sardinia are limited. Alghero Airport to Stintino is about 49 km and about 41 minutes by car; the bus to La Pelosa is possible but takes around 2 hours or more depending on the timetable and the changes.

Transfer

41 min

Cost level

medium-high in July-August; lower outside peak season

Staying

Hotels, B&Bs, apartments and holiday rentals in Stintino. Prices rise significantly in July, August and the holiday periods.

No-wind days

Swimming and snorkelling at La Pelosa, kayak or windsurf, boat trips into the Gulf of Asinara and the Asinara National Park, sailing and catamaran tours, diving, and hiking or cycling on Asinara once it cools down.

Photos

FAQ

Is Stintino suitable for beginners?

Beginners can use the shallow, sheltered water in moderate, well-supervised conditions, but strong Grecale above 30 knots, rocks and rough water suit intermediate to advanced riders better.

What is the wind like?

Modelled data shows only about 12.3% of days with usable wind and a 7.2-knot year-round average, with Grecale, Levante, Maestrale and Tramontana as the working directions and the best months in autumn and winter.

Where do you actually launch?

The practical kite launch is not the famous La Pelosa swimming beach but Spiaggia del Gabbiano or L'Approdo farther south, or Le Saline nearby.

Are there rules or restricted zones?

In 2026, access to La Pelosa beach itself requires a paid reservation from 15 May to 15 October, capped at 1,500 daily places, and the bathing-season ordinance reserves 200 m from sandy beaches and 100 m from rocky coasts for swimmers.

What hazards should riders know about?

Hazards include rocky outcrops and headlands, strong currents near the rocky points, and a sand-and-rock bottom in parts of the riding zone.

The bigger pictureEverything about Northwest Sardinia

Last updated: August 2026