Santa Maria Manuela Turismo

Corridor footprint

The Santa Maria Manuela was launched in 1937 at the CUF shipyards in Lisbon as a lugre bacalhoeiro, a cod-fishing schooner, built at the same yard and time as her sister ship Creoula, now with the Portuguese Navy. Until the late 1980s she fished cod off Newfoundland and Greenland as part of the White Fleet; by 1993 she had been judged obsolete and partly demolished, leaving only the hull. Pascoal bought the remains in 2007 and restored her in Aveiro, returning her to her original state in 2010. Público reported in October 2016 that the ship had passed to the owner of the Pingo Doce supermarket chain, and Wikipedia lists her as belonging to Grupo Jerónimo Martins. Santa Maria Manuela Turismo, S.A. (NIF 515755028) was incorporated in Lisbon on 18 December 2019 with share capital of €50,000, registered under CAE 50101 for sea passenger transport, maritime-tourism activities and the organisation and sale of tourist trips with accommodation and meals. The ship offers sail-training and adventure-sailing voyages for up to 44 paying guests, plus charters and team-building programmes; its published autumn 2026 schedule is in Madeira and the Canaries, including a six-night Funchal–Tenerife eco-voyage from 29 October priced from €960.

The Norwegian branch, SANTA MARIA MANUELA TURISMO S.A., was entered in the Brønnøysund register on 3 March 2026 as a Norwegian-registered foreign enterprise (NUF) under NACE 50.109, other coastal passenger traffic, with its Norwegian post handled c/o Deloitte Prosjekt AS in Oslo. It is registered for Norwegian VAT, and its stated purpose is maritime tourism: passenger transport, chartering the Santa Maria Manuela to third parties, tourist activities, excursions and tours including board and lodging, and the sale of food, drinks and promotional material. The ship put that registration to use in May 2026. Ålesund’s daily Sunnmørsposten reported that she arrived in Ålesund on the morning of Thursday 21 May on a cruise along the Norwegian coast, having come from Bergen, Flåm and Olden and heading on to Geiranger, following a record day of nearly 13,000 cruise tourists in the town. On 28 May around 80 representatives of Sunnmøre’s clipfish industry and finance community gathered on board while she lay at the quay in Ålesund.

Why this matters for the corridor

The Santa Maria Manuela was built to catch the cod that Portugal turns into bacalhau, and in 2026 she carried that history to Sunnmøre, one of the centres of Norway’s clipfish industry. Portugal remains the world’s largest buyer of Norwegian clipfish, so a Portuguese tall ship hosting Ålesund’s clipfish exporters on deck is the corridor’s oldest trade made visible. The NUF also shows the practical route for a Portuguese tourism operator selling voyages in Norwegian waters: a VAT-registered branch with its Norwegian administration handled by a local advisory firm.

Recent activity

The Norwegian branch was registered on 3 March 2026; the Ålesund port call and the clipfish-industry gathering on board followed on 21 and 28 May 2026. For the trade behind the story, see Portugal stays Norway’s No.1 bacalhau market as 2026 cod quotas tighten.

Sources: nif.pt and racius.com (Santa Maria Manuela Turismo, S.A.); Brønnøysund Register Centre (org. no. 937191405); Wikipedia (Santa Maria Manuela); Público, 27 October 2016; Sunnmørsposten, 21 and 29 May 2026; santamariamanuela.pt. Spotted an error? Email miguel@fractio.se.