Montenegro has 293 kilometres of coastline, and most of its sailing life happens in the Bay of Kotor, where the water is sheltered by mountains and distances between harbours are short. There are marinas in Tivat, Herceg Novi, Kotor, Budva and Bar, and Porto Montenegro in Tivat takes yachts up to 250 metres. Outside Boka, on the open Adriatic, you sail to St Nicholas island off Budva and on south to Bar and Ulcinj.
Sailing in Montenegro: routes through the Bay of Kotor and along the coast, marinas and ports of entry, the cruising permit, winds and the best time to sail.
Boka, a bay of four bays
The Bay of Kotor is made up of four smaller bays: Herceg Novi at the entrance, Tivat, Risan and Kotor. Straits link them, and the narrowest, Verige, is only 340 metres wide. Boka is often called a fjord, but it is in fact a ria, a river valley flooded by the sea. For sailors this means calm water and short day legs: in one day you can get from the mouth of the bay to Perast and Kotor.
Off Perast lie the islands of Our Lady of the Rocks and St George, and at the mouth of the bay the island of Mamula. The steep slopes of Lovćen and Orjen close in the inner bay, so the wind can drop or shift behind every headland.
Marinas and harbours
Porto Montenegro in Tivat was built on the site of the Arsenal, a naval base founded by Austria-Hungary in 1889. Today it has more than 500 berths for yachts up to 250 metres, and next to the marina is the Maritime Heritage Collection with the submarine Heroj. The same bay also has Kalimanj, a small town harbour.
At the entrance to Boka is Portonovi marina in Kumbor, with 238 berths for yachts up to 140 metres. On the open coast there is a marina beside the Old Town walls in Budva and a marina in Bar, while the Luštica Bay marina handles domestic traffic only.
Did you know?
Tivat is home to Jadran, the three-masted sail training ship of the Montenegrin Navy, built in Hamburg between 1930 and 1933.
Clearing in and the cruising permit
Arriving from abroad, you first clear in at a harbour with a border crossing: Porto Montenegro, Portonovi, Kotor, Bar and, in summer, Budva. In Bar, border control takes place in the commercial port before you enter the marina. When you clear in, you pay the harbour master for a vignette, a cruising permit sold for a minimum of one week, and the skipper needs a valid licence to handle the boat.
Winds and the open sea
On summer days the maestral blows, a mild north-westerly breeze off the sea that is the main sailing wind along the coast. In winter the bura is common, a strong, gusty wind that drops down the mountains into Boka. Outside the bay, on the open sea, the route runs past Budva and St Nicholas island towards Bar and Ulcinj, where the coves are more exposed to the open sea than in Boka.
