Régates Royales de Cannes - Preview

Régates Royales de Cannes day 5 © James Robinson Taylor / www.jrtphoto.com

An unmissable rendezvous on the classic yachting circuit, the Régates Royales – Trophée Panerai are going to celebrate their 38th anniversary, from 18 to 25 September. Moored along the quai Laubeuf, just opposite the world-famous Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, over fifty Dragons and a real armada of around eighty classic yachts, including several centenarians, will race on the waters of the La Napoule in a unique display of elegance and competition.

Shortly after the end of the Boat Show, the Festival de la Plaisance (from 6 to 11 September), Cannes will get back to the glamorous belle epoque of yachting to welcome gaff cutters, schooners, sloops, yawls, J Class, one-designs, 12MI... This year, the fleet will be even more heterogeneous with the addition of over twenty 5.50 MI, the boat conceived in 1949, that will have their own three-days' event (21-22-23 September) after joining the fleet from Switzerland's Société Nautique de Genève that organizes its traditional seawater regatta on Sunday 18 and Monday 19 September.

For the rest of the classics, divided into seven classes according to size, age and rig, the event offers five full days of racing off the Lérins islands. A truly unique gathering, with some of the hugest and most famous boats from last century like the majestic Elena (55 metres, design by Nathanaël Herreshoff), Cambria (40 metres, design by William Fife), Moonbeam of Fife (31 metres, design by William Fife). This year some yachts will also celebrate key anniversaries such as 110 years for Eva (17,50 metres, design by William Fife de 1906), the centenary for New York 40s, Rowdy and Chinook (19,87 metres, design by Nathanaël Herreshoff de 1916), 90 years for Hallowe'en (24,75 metres, design by William Fife) and 80 for Eilean (22,20 metres, design by William Fife)

2016 will mark the 37th edition of the renewed Régates Royales, one of the oldest inshore races in the Mediterranean, the debut event being held in 1929 to honour King Christian X of Denmark. The hosting Yacht Club de Cannes is also one of the most venerable in France, as it was founded in the spring of 1859 when Messieurs Béchard, Tripet-Skrypitzone, de Colquhoum and Bucquet created the Société des Régates and organized the first race in the Napoule Bay for yachts like Léro, Olga, Jeannette and Touriste but open also to small sailing and rowing boats owned by local sailors and fishermen.

The Régates Royales de Cannes are also the last event of the Trophée Panerai, a true world championship of classic yachting and represent a unique chance to pay tribute to elegance with a special award that has been presented for the first time in 2015 to the sloop Serenade, a design by Nicolas Potter from 1938 and skippered by British Hugues Boullenger.

And, like every autumn, the Dragons will animate the bay of Cannes in one of the most interesting international events of the class featuring some fifty crews coming from over ten different countries: Russia, Finland, the UK, Ukraine, Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia and, of course, France. Once again the Régates Royales de Cannes – Trophée Panerai 2016 will be nothing but an event full of suspense and close racing.

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