Closing event of the Panerai Trophy, that started last April, the 38th edition of Régates Royales de Cannes embodies a unique mix of elegance and competition.
Dragons, classics including several centenarians, 12 Metres and other America’s Cup boats, Tofinou and the debutant 5.5 Metres will reunite in the Bay of La Napoule from 18 to 25 September for a series that promises to be as spectacular and fought for as ever. This year summer will end on Thursday September 22, opening the door to autumn and marking the midpoint of the Régates Royales de Cannes: a friendly but tough battle for over fifty Dragons, six Tofinou, eighty classics and nineteen 5.5 Metres.
A line-up: from twenty different countries
Coming from all over France, the 1929 one-designs born on Johan Anker’s drawing board, will once more raid over the bay of La Napoule and Juan les Pins: a very technical race area with the tricky wind shadow from the Lérins Islands.
Yet, the fleet boasts an extremely varied line-up with crews coming from Belgium, Spain, Estonia. Finland, the UK, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey and the USA dozens of aficionados not wanting to miss the season’s grand finale, a series that is always as friendly as deeply contested.
Cannes attracts also sailors from other parts of the world, like Australians, Canadians, Italians, Dutch and crews from nearby Monaco who race side by side with some of the hugest and most stunning yachts on the planet like the 55 metres long Elena of London. The classics’ division will feature other stars:Aschanti, Cambria, Hallowe’en, Moonbeam of Fife, Puritan, Naema and Moonbeam IV that will sure give it all to be crowned winners. Former Americas’ Cup boats will be making heads turn too, including French 12 Metres France that will be present for the very first time since her launch in 1969 to the Régates Royales de Cannes to fight with Chancegger, Sovereign, Enterprise and Seven Seas of Porto.
There will be several “old and new” centenarians racing in Cannes, including two rookies: Chinook et Rowdy, the New York Forty one-design created by Bristol’s wizard Nathanaël Herreshoff exactly one century ago. All in all, there are more than twenty centenarians racing in Cannes like Windhover, Viola, Veronique, Spartan, Phoebius, Oriole, Nin, Nan of Fife, Morwenna, Lulu, Kelpie, Eva or Marigold, the oldest classic entrant to the Régates Royales designed by Charles Nicholson in 1892. Enthusiasts will also be able to watch other boats that have made history like the Italian Class America Il Moro di Venezia; Britton Chance’s designed Resolute Salmon winner of the 1976 One Ton Cup in Marseille or President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s yacht Manitou.
The Régates Royales de Cannes will then represent a great chance to admire some of the best looking boats on the planet. Rendezvous from 18 to 25 September to take pleasure in the magnificent details of the yachts ashore, moored at the old quay, and the great show on the bay.
