Vendée Globe

Lying on the trade route, the islands of Madeira are isolated in the Atlantic, 500 miles from Lisbon and 250 miles from the Canaries. These volcanic islands rise up to more than 1500 metres in height, affecting the wind, creating a lee which can stretch thirty miles or so, a good reason why the Vendée Globe sailors are keeping well away

At the same latitude as Casablanca, there are in fact two groups of islands (the main island of Madeira, Porto Santo and Desertas in the north and the Selvagens far off to the south), but only Madeira itself (popn. 275,000) and Porto Santo (popn.7000 ) are inhabited.  The latter was the first to be discovered in 1419 by two explorers sent out by the Portuguese king, Henry the Navigator, totally by chance, as their boat was swept out to sea in gales: João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristao Vaz Teixeira were able to take refuge in the lee of the island that they called the Holy Harbour.  Noticing another island on the horizon, Zarco went back the following year accompanied by Bartolomeu Perestrelo and landed at Machico, founding the town of Funchal in 1421.

Confronted by the dense forest, the first settlers set fire to Madeira, the volcanic outcrop with its  ravines and mountains rising up to 1861 metres (Pico Ruivo de Santana). Sugar cane imported from Italy and vines from Crete became the two major crops on Madeira particularly concentrated on the southern slopes. The north is battered by the winds and sea with cliffs towering 500 metres: It took centuries for a track and then a road to be built along the coast from Porto Moniz to Porto da Cruz…

From Columbus to Emperor Charles of Austria 

Christopher Columbus stopped in Porto Santo in 1478 and married the governor's daughter, Felipa Perestrelo, which enabled him to gain access to her father's "portulans" (navigation charts) and considered his first voyage to the future America… Lying on the route to the West Indies and Brazil, Madeira became a strategic stopover in the triangular trade routes between Europe, Africa and the West Indies or Brazil, with the slave trade and the riches of America.

A Portuguese colony, the islands were attacked by the French pirate, Bertrand de Montluc, who set up a reign of terror for two weeks in 1566.  It then became a Spanish possession from 1580 to 1640 before the British got hold of them, when Charles II married Catherine of Braganza in 1662…

The nineteenth Century was horrible for the population of Madeira, who saw their 90% of their vineyards destroyed by mildew, and the population was decimated by cholera (7000 deaths) and  the phylloxera spread … Tourism gradually replaced agriculture with large hotels opening like the  Reids in 1890 and the establishment of a flying boat service from Lisbon in 1921. The last emperor of Austria, Charles took exile there after the war and the British started to go there on holiday.  After the carnation revolution of 1974, the islands of Madeira became an autonomous region of Portugal like the Azores.

 
A special climate

Because of its privileged geographical situation and its relief, Madeira benefits from a temperate sub-tropical climate with a small annual temperature range and moderate humidity. Temperatures vary from 23º in the summer to 17°C in the winter. Thanks to the warm currents, the sea temperature varies from 22º to 18º .  The prevailing wind is westerly in winter (temperate flow) and the NE'ly trade wind blows in summer (Portuguese trade winds).  It is often cloudy in the north  and very wet, while the south is dry and has more sunshine, particularly in summer. Rainfall varies from 500 mm in the south-east to more than two metres on the North cliffs.

There can be wide temperature variations between the coast and mountains with temperatures below 10° in the upper regions and over 25° in Calheta... The NE'ly winds are blocked by the mountains and while they sometimes strengthen with the Venturi effect between Porto Santo and Machico, they are weaker further west, often with calms near the airport.  The wind only appears again ten miles or so south of the island… Like all such mountainous islands in the middle of the sea, there can be a wind shadow stretching out for more than twenty miles leeward, but it also affects the trade winds on the windward side.  That is why those, who have opted for a route to the west are more than fifty miles away, while Jean Le Cam may find a strengthening of the wind to the east of the islands.

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