Yoff
Dakar Region · Dakar - Ngor/Yoff
also known as Yoff Bay, Yoff Plage, Yoff Beach, Plage BCEAO, Beach Breaks of Yoff
Riding essentials
Season
Nov–Jun
Months riders and schools name
How windy
10-15 knots
Character: mixed
Room to launch
huge
access rules on record, below
Water
mixed
27 °C in summerSea and sandy beach break, choppy to small, medium and sometimes big waves, on a wide sandy beach
Hazards
19
Reported by riders
Level
Intermediate to advanced
With a caveat: see Your level
Crowds
high crowds · busy Nov Dec Jan Feb
Schools
none named here
From the airport
Diagne International Airport (DSS)
Transfer times under Getting there
When it fills in
Mornings are often light or offshore from the land side. The usable wind is an afternoon build: the thermal turns it N to NW and it holds into the evening. Plan sessions for the second half of the day and treat a dead morning as normal rather than as a lost day.
Nearbystraight-line distance
Backup spotsWhere riders go when the wind doesn't work here.
- Malikano page yet
- Le Virageno page yet
- Ouakamno page yet
- Club Medno page yet
- Vivier / Secretno page yet
- Plage Monaccono page yet
The spot
Seasons and wind
The crowd and conditions
Skill level
The wind
locals call it Alizes / Harmattan-influenced dry-season north to northeast trades, with afternoon N-NW thermal effect reported locally
Direction
Direction to shore
Onshore to cross-onshore. The beach faces north-northwest, so the dry-season N and NE trades come in face-on or slightly from the right, and the afternoon N-NW thermal is straight onshore. Offshore here means south-southeast, off the city, which is exactly what the light early-morning land breeze does before the sea breeze takes over.
Dominant direction
N to NE through the November-June dry season, swinging N to NW in the afternoon as the thermal builds. A hot gusty easterly Harmattan is possible in January and February. The July-October rainy season brings a weak humid westerly.
Kite sizes
metres · typical quiver highlighted
The quiver, in words
Wind and kite sizingThis is a big-kite spot. A normal dry-season day gives 10-15 knots and hardly ever more, the better afternoons touch 20, and the monthly model average sits down at 8-10 knots. For a 75-85 kg rider that means a 12 m does most of the work, a 14 m or a light-wind foil setup rescues the marginal afternoons that make up a large share of any trip, and a 9-10 m only comes out on the strongest north days. A 7 m is dead weight. Nobody has published a local quiver, so this is sized off the wind band rather than off what you will see on the sand.
Character
Average strength
8-10 knots as a monthly average across the year, which is below rideable; the afternoons that actually work sit at 10-15 knots. Roughly 290 days a year reach 12 knots at some point, but that count includes brief gusts rather than sessions.
Typical strength
10-15 knots on an ordinary dry-season day, hardly ever more, with the odd afternoon reaching 20. The gap between forecast and rideable is small here, so a couple of knots either way decides the session.
Forecast
Live forecast
Month by month
- Jan, riders' month61
- Feb, riders' month86
- Mar, riders' month82
- Apr, riders' month80
- May, riders' month73
- Jun, riders' month38
- Jul23
- Aug34
- Sep22
- Oct23
- Nov, riders' month37
- Dec, riders' month48
windy days per month (3 h+ at 12 kn+)
Ringed months are the ones riders and schools name: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Nov, Dec.
- 61%Jan21°
- 86%Feb19°
- 82%Mar20°
- 80%Apr21°
- 73%May22°
- 38%Jun25°
- 23%Jul27°
- 34%Aug28°
- 22%Sep28°
- 23%Oct28°
- 37%Nov27°
- 48%Dec24°
windy days per month (3 h+ at 12 kn+) · water °C below · season highlighted
Modelled from the operational forecast archive at 1.5–7 km (2023-2024), daylight hours only, not a ground station: it resolves thermal, lake and valley winds far better than coarse reanalysis but still tends to understate a strong local thermal.
Every figure, month by monthWindy days · Force 4+ · 12 kn or more · Knots · Wind from · Peaks at · Air · Water · Readings
| Month | Windy days | Force 4+ | 12 kn or more | Knots | Wind from | Peaks at | Air | Water | Readings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 61% | 90% | 74% | 13.5 kt | NNE | 13:00 | 21.1 °C | 21.1 °C | 62 |
| Feb | 86% | 96% | 95% | 16.2 kt | N | 14:00 | 21.1 °C | 19.4 °C | 57 |
| Mar | 82% | 92% | 89% | 14.6 kt | NNE | 13:00 | 21.1 °C | 20 °C | 62 |
| Apr | 80% | 88% | 87% | 15.3 kt | N | 14:00 | 21.7 °C | 20.6 °C | 60 |
| May | 73% | 89% | 81% | 14.4 kt | N | 16:00 | 22.8 °C | 22.2 °C | 62 |
| Jun | 38% | 70% | 55% | 12.4 kt | NNW | 15:00 | 25.6 °C | 25 °C | 60 |
| Jul | 23% | 50% | 44% | 11.3 kt | WNW | 14:00 | 27.2 °C | 27.2 °C | 62 |
| Aug | 34% | 60% | 52% | 11.8 kt | WNW | 15:00 | 27.8 °C | 27.8 °C | 62 |
| Sep | 22% | 50% | 33% | 11.3 kt | N | 13:00 | 27.8 °C | 28.3 °C | 60 |
| Oct | 23% | 42% | 34% | 10.9 kt | NNW | 14:00 | 27.8 °C | 28.3 °C | 62 |
| Nov | 37% | 70% | 55% | 12.2 kt | N | 13:00 | 26.1 °C | 26.7 °C | 60 |
| Dec | 48% | 79% | 63% | 12.9 kt | NNE | 13:00 | 23.9 °C | 23.9 °C | 62 |
How this is modelledmodelled · 2023-2024
A weather model's cell over this place, not a station on it. Good for comparing places, weaker for one beach.
A windy day has at least three consecutive daylight hours at 12 knots or more. 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.
High-resolution weather model (modelled) · Open-Meteo historical forecast archive — best-match operational model (ICON-D2 / AROME / ICON-EU / GFS by region), not a ground station · 2023-2024
The water
Type
mixed
Standing depth
Not a lagoon and not a standing spot. This is an open Atlantic sand beach break: you wade through the shorebreak and you are swimming shortly after, with the depth changing by tide and swell. No depth profile has ever been mapped here, so plan on being able to swim rather than on being able to touch bottom.
Tides
Semi-diurnal with a modest range - lows near 0.0-0.2 m and highs around 1.0-1.4 m on a late-August spring cycle. The tide matters for wave size and for rips rather than for access.Waves run 1-2 m on a rising tide and reach 4 m on a heavy swell, and rip currents form most readily on the push, so a rising tide with a north-west swell running is the combination to respect.
Temperature
27 °C summer · 20 °C winter
Modelled monthly average: 19–28 °C
Wetsuit
Boardshorts/rash vest most of the year; a 2 mm long-sleeve shorty or 3/2 spring suit can be useful when the wind is up in the coldest period around March.
Currents
Dakar beaches can have rip-current/baine hazards linked to NW, SW and W swells plus surface and bottom currents perpendicular to the coast; check local lifeguards and avoid swimming/kiting near obvious rips.
Conditions
Your level
not for beginners here
The scene
What riders come here for
Launch and rules
three ways on to the water, and what each one asks of you
With a school or a boat
No school names this spot
Nobody has been recorded teaching or running a boat here.
On your own
Room to launch: huge
Somewhere else
2 spots nearby
Rescue
Launch
The main launch is the BCEAO recreation-centre and paillote zone on Yoff Beach: a wide, effectively endless sand strip with rentable huts behind it, where bags go into a paillote for about 1000 FCFA, the year of that figure unconfirmed.It is a working city beach as much as a kite launch. Pick a stretch with a clear downwind buffer past the swimmers, the football games and the pirogue landing zones, and expect that buffer to move through the day.
Rules & access
1 min read
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
- Come for the afternoon. The morning is usually light or offshore and the thermal is what makes the day.
- Use the BCEAO paillote zone as your reference point, then ask the riders already on the sand where the clear stretch is, because it moves with the football and the boats.
- Read wind and swell together: a north wind is onshore, NE is cross-on from the right, and a rising tide on a decent swell doubles the wave you have to get through.
- Bring the big kite. A 12 m is the working size, and a 14 m or a foil saves more days here than a small kite ever will.
- Stay clear of the pirogue launch and landing corridors; the boats have right of way in practice, whatever anyone tells you.
- Ask the lifeguards about rips before you go out, and note that bathing is closed between 19:00 and 09:00 on authorised beaches.
- Skip the session after heavy rain or near a visible outfall.
Getting there
Airport
Blaise Diagne International Airport (DSS) is Dakar's main international airport; the old Léopold Sédar Senghor airport by Yoff no longer takes international traffic.
Route
From DSS, take a taxi or private transfer, or the Dakar Dem Dikk airport bus toward Dakar and Grand Yoff, then a local taxi to Yoff and BCEAO. The old directions for the spot still work: ask the taxi for Centre Aéré BCEAO in Yoff.
Transfer
35-75 minutes depending on traffic and mode: about 35-38 minutes by car over roughly 50-52 km, about 75 minutes by airport bus to Grand Yoff.
Cost level
medium
Staying
Yoff and BCEAO have surf-house and apartment stays. Dakar Surf Yoga House has private and shared rooms in BCEAO, with restaurants, a supermarket, a bank, a pharmacy and shops nearby. The wider hotel supply is in Yoff, Ngor and Almadies.
No-wind days
Surf Yoff’s beach break or take guided surf trips to Ngor, Ouakam, Club Med, Vivier/Secret and other Almadies breaks; SUP/yoga/beach volleyball at local surf houses; visit Ngor Island, the African Renaissance Monument, Mamelles lighthouse, Dakar markets and Goree Island.
Photos
FAQ
When is the best time to kite at Yoff?
The dry season from November to June brings the steadiest north to northeast trade winds, with an afternoon thermal often shifting the wind N-NW.
Is Yoff suitable for beginners?
No, it is rated intermediate to advanced because of open-ocean waves, urban beach crowds, possible rips and fishing-boat traffic.
What is the wind like?
Typical riding wind is modest, around 10-15 knots in the dry season, so light-wind gear helps.
What are the main hazards?
Heavy pirogue fishing-boat traffic launches through the surf, and rip-current risk is reported for Dakar beaches along with possible water-quality concerns after rain.
The bigger pictureEverything about Dakar - Ngor/Yoff
Last updated: August 2026