Boat couture

A modern yacht passing in front of the old port during Les Voiles de St-Tropez

The Mediterranean regatta programme reaches its climax this weekend with the start of Les Voiles de St-Tropez, an end-of-season sailing jamboree which is unique not only for its eclectic mix of yachts but also its engagement with the town of St-Tropez itself, the quintessential French port and A-listers’ favourite.

By night the world’s finest yachts, ancient and modern, moor stern-to the Quai de Suffren, cheek by jowl with the spectacularly dressed café society. It’s a place to watch and be watched. By day, once the “dust” has cleared from the previous night, the fleet races in the dramatic Baie de St-Tropez, a natural amphitheatre for regatta spectators.

With its end-of-term atmosphere before yachts track west to the Caribbean, Les Voiles is as much an excuse for a party in the town’s chic backstreet restaurants, bars and private villas as it is a sailing competition, although with Rolex as a major sponsor there’s plenty at stake in terms of trophies.

Like many successful regattas this one started with a wager between two yachtsmen. In September 1981 two yachts, Ikra and Pride, raced from the beach at Pampelonne to an offshore reef called La Nioulargue, the name by which the event was originally known. The fleet has since grown to more than 300 invited yachts, the biggest of which are far too large to be accommodated in the port itself.

In 1995 the event slid into obscurity after a fatal accident in which a yachtsman drowned when his yacht was in collision with a much larger schooner in a start line incident. The consequences and subsequent prosecution for involuntary manslaughter resulted in a three-year hiatus but, with new organisation provided by the Société Nautique de St-Tropez, it has since burgeoned under its new name.

Anxious to provide the shore-side crowd with a close-up view of the action, the Société starts and finishes the varied classes just off the harbour entrance and while there is still concern that the mass of yachts weaving in and out of an occasionally over-enthusiastic spectator fleet is still a threat to safety, the race management has improved considerably over the years.

But it is the sheer mix of yachts which draws both competitor and spectator to St-Tropez. This year, in the classic division, there will be four examples of the sublime 15-metre class with Tuiga, Hispania, Mariska and Lady Anne in town. There are 115 yachts expected in the traditional classes including the 1937 Manitou, which was used by John F Kennedy and became known as the Floating White House.

The modern maxi class has been depleted this year due to the demise of George David’s Rambler 100, which lost her keel and capsized in the Rolex Fastnet in August, but Peter Harrison’s 115ft Sojana will be there as will the J class lookalike Firefly, a brand new 115-footer.

There’s a large modern race-boat contingent and, along with the ultra-modern Wally class, there’s not another regatta in the world that can boast such a mix.

Nowhere is the variety more obvious than on the dockside where the latest in superyacht styling, epitomised by Wally, rubs fenders with the gleaming timber of yachts from more than 100 years ago, all lying opposite the Café de Paris and the Hotel Sube, with its famous yachtsman’s bar on the first floor. And as owners and their friends entertain on the aft decks of their yachts, evening promenaders can amble up and down the quayside inspecting the fleet and its occupants at a remarkably short range.

But for the yachtsmen the racecourse beckons for an eight-day extravaganza of competition. Conditions in the Baie can vary from millpond light to the gale force strength of a mistral and while these extremes are not ideal, modern design technology means that a full programme can normally be completed.

Twenty years ago, light wind speeds would typically mean racing had to be postponed or abandoned but lightweight structures, movable ballast and automatic sailing systems have resulted in modern yachts sailing faster than the wind. Luca Bassani’s Wally brand has been the vehicle for many a technological breakthrough and the company’s ability to blend performance and ease of handling with sensational lines has struck a chord with the Mediterranean sailing community.

Up to a dozen Wallys could be lining up in St-Tropez, ranging from Claus-Peter Offen’s Y3K and Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones’ Magic Carpet2 to the giant 143ft Esense and the Wally 130 Angel’s Share, which has undergone a spectacular styling upgrade. Next year will see the first of the new hybrid racer/cruiser WallyCento class in the water and that will be followed by a new out-and-out racing 80-footer called the Wally Otto.

The classic fleet has also benefited from new technology in lighter and more effective sails and rigging which generates a new-found performance that would never have been possible when the yachts were launched in the last century.

With modern yachts and classics mixing it off a town that is the epitome of chic it is easy to see why Les Voiles de St-Tropez remains a yachtsman’s favourite.

David Glenn is the editor of Yachting World and Supersail World

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Details

Les Voiles de St-Tropez runs until October 2 and incorporates the final races of the Financial Times Wally Grand Prix, a series of regattas that has been taking place throughout the Mediterranean this summer, the result of a partnership between the yachtmaker Wally and this newspaper. For details and results see www.ft.wally.com