Levante storms on the Costa Blanca — what to check before and after

The levante is an easterly wind that funnels into the western Mediterranean and lifts a short, steep swell straight onto the Costa Blanca coast. Most marinas here face east or southeast, so the outer pontoons take a beating two or three times a year — sometimes more.

If your boat is on an outer berth at Alicante, the Club Náutico Torrevieja or Santa Pola, the levante is the storm you should plan around.

Before the storm

When a levante is forecast (usually 48–72 hours' notice), the work is mostly about lines, fenders and loose gear.

• Double up dock lines on the windward side. Add a spring if you only have bow and stern.
• Check every chafe point. A guardrail, a fairlead, a cleat edge — anywhere a line bends. Add chafe protection.
• Fenders on the right side, at the right height. Lifted fenders are useless. Tie them so they sit between the hull and the dock at rest, not above the rubbing strake.
• Lower or strike the sprayhood if it's old or marginal. A flapping panel will tear out its stitching in one night of 35-knot gusts.
• Halyards away from the mast. Slap noise aside, halyards left to swing chafe through cores fast.
• Clear the cockpit and decks of anything that can take off — buckets, fender boards, loose covers.
• Hatches closed and dogged, including forward hatches that look secure but aren't.

During

There's nothing to do during. Trying to be on the boat in a proper levante is dangerous and usually unhelpful. Pontoons heave, lines you can't tend snatch, and getting on and off gets ugly.

After the storm

This is where damage gets found — or missed.

• Walk the boat slowly. Look at every line where it crosses a fairlead. Chafe damage you can't see from the cockpit will show up here.
• Inspect fenders and rubbing strake. A line that snatched will have driven a fender out and rubbed the hull.
• Look at neighbouring boats. A lot of "your damage" actually came from a neighbour's line, fender or fitting working loose against your hull.
• Open lockers and check the bilge. Wind-driven water gets in through places that don't normally leak.
• Check the mast base and chainplates if it was a serious blow — for keel-stepped masts especially.
• Photograph anything new. Even small dings. Insurance claims after a storm are easier with date-stamped photos.

The absentee owner problem

Most owners we work with aren't here for the levante. They get the forecast from the Met Office, watch the wind charts go red, and have no way to know whether their boat is fine until they next fly out — by which point any chafe damage has been quietly getting worse for weeks.

A pre-storm walk-round and a post-storm inspection with photos is the cheapest insurance you can have. It's exactly the sort of thing we do for owners between visits.

If your boat is on the Costa Blanca and you'd like eyes on it before and after the next blow, get in touch.