★ Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez

01Why it matters

This is the largest and most watchable gathering of classic yachts in the Mediterranean, and one of the very few events on the international calendar where the boats themselves — not a paddock, a marquee or a gallery — are the thing on public display. The classic fleet that races here is a substantial part of the surviving nineteenth- and twentieth-century racing yachts in the world, and the owners who maintain them treat Saint-Tropez as the season's end and its point.

In our reading, its authority rests on refusing to become a trade event. Cannes and Monaco, ten and twenty days earlier, are commercial shows with quayside hospitality; Les Voiles is a race week in a town that happens to be famous. The port is open, the crews eat in the same restaurants as the visitors, and the whole thing costs nothing to watch. Very little else at this level of the calendar is arranged that way.

02The week around it

Saint-Tropez in late September is past its summer peak, which is exactly why the regatta works there: the town is busy but navigable, the weather is still good, and the port has capacity that it does not have in August. The population swells over the nine days, with the second weekend the busiest. Parking becomes very difficult and the road in from Sainte-Maxime and Grimaud slows badly on the weekends.

The old port is closed to ordinary traffic and given to the fleet. Place des Lices holds its Tuesday and Saturday markets as usual, which is a good reason to be there mid-week. The beach clubs on Pampelonne are winding down but the better-known ones stay open through the regatta and close shortly after; the Club 55 Cup lunch is part of that closing rhythm. Cannes, half an hour along the coast, has finished its own two September events by this point, and a certain number of people come down from Monaco after the yacht show.

03When to arrive

The regatta runs nine days and few people stay for all of it. The classic fleet and the big set-piece days fall in the second half, so arriving on the middle Wednesday or Thursday and staying to the final Sunday captures the parade, the Défi and the prizegiving. The first weekend is quieter and easier for hotels. Arrive by mid-afternoon on any day and you will see the fleet come in. Leave on the Monday; Sunday evening departures collide with everyone else's.

04Where to stay

Inside Saint-Tropez means walking to the port, which is worth a great deal here because driving and parking are the week's real friction. The streets behind the old port and around the Place des Lices are the closest; the Route des Salins and the Citadelle side are a short walk uphill and quieter. Toward Pampelonne, along the Route des Plages, you get space and pools and a car dependency. Across the gulf, Sainte-Maxime, Port Grimaud and Cogolin are materially cheaper, have far more rooms, and are connected to Saint-Tropez by a passenger ferry that runs through the day — which is the single best piece of local advice for this week, because the ferry lands you at the port and the road does not. Ramatuelle and Gassin, in the hills, are calm and require a car.

05Access and hospitality

There is no admission charge. The quays, the Village des Voiles and the whole port are open to the public throughout, and watching the fleet leave and return costs nothing. Racing entry is by registration with the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez against the notice of race, with separate divisions for classic and modern yachts; entry is not by invitation. Sponsors operate pavilions in the village that are variously open and by invitation. Spectator boats are offered commercially by local operators and are not sold by the organizer.

06Where the social activity happens

The Quai Jean Jaurès and the Quai Suffren, the two arms of the old port, carry almost everything. The Sénéquier terrace at the head of the port is the town's fixed observation point and has been for seventy years; the cafés either side of it fill from mid-morning. The Village des Voiles by the new port is the daytime meeting place, with the race office, the results board, the sponsors and the stage for the evening prizegivings. La Ponche and the streets behind the Musée de l'Annonciade are where the town quiets down. In the evening the restaurants along the port and around the Place des Lices take the crowd, and the Pampelonne beach restaurants stay open for lunch through the regatta before closing for the winter. The Citadelle above the town gives a free view over the gulf and the racing.

07Getting there

08Practicalities

09History

The event began on 29 September 1981 with a private challenge: an American couple aboard the Swan 44 Pride raced the 12-metre Ikra, and Patrice de Colmont, whose family runs the Club 55 restaurant on Pampelonne, organized the match and gave the winner lunch. The Club 55 Cup still commemorates it.

What followed became the Nioulargue, named for the shoal used as a mark. By 1983 it was drawing maxis and classics; de Colmont's recruiting methods, which the organizer's own history describes as including a chartered jet and well-judged hospitality, turned an informal challenge into an international fixture built on mixing eras and designs and on camaraderie rather than results. It ran through the 1980s and into the 1990s as one of the most admired weeks in European sailing.

In 1995 a collision between the schooner Mariette and a smaller yacht killed a sailor, and the event was suspended. After three years of legal proceedings the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez, the town's sailing club, relaunched it in 1999 under a new name and with substantially revised safety rules. The organizer's account describes the intention as keeping the original spirit within a proper race management structure, and the modern regatta now runs to around 300 boats in its own telling.

10Who is there

Classic yacht owners and the restorers, riggers and sailmakers who keep those boats going; maxi and modern racing owners with professional afterguards; the Société Nautique's own membership and the wider French sailing community; watch, apparel and drinks sponsors with pavilions in the village; marine photographers, for whom this is one of the two or three set-piece weeks of the year; and a very large general public, French and international, who come to look at the boats and eat on the quay.