Les Voiles closes the Mediterranean season, and it does it in the only harbour where a 1927 schooner and a modern maxi tie up on the same quay and their crews drink in the same bar. A week of racing in the Baie de St Tropez each autumn, split between a Modern class and a Traditional fleet of classics that exist almost nowhere else in these numbers.
Unlike the invitation-only regattas, Les Voiles is open: you enter, you are measured, you race. That makes it the most accessible way to actually compete at this level from a chartered yacht. Guests sail, the professional crew handles the boat, and the racing is close enough to shore that the spectator fleet and the village watch every mark rounding.
The regatta runs over a week from late September into early October, with the Traditional and Modern fleets sailing on alternating days and a combined day towards the end. Berths on the Quai Suffren and in the Nouveau Port go to entrants first, which is another reason to commit early. Yachts not racing anchor in the bay off the Pampelonne beaches and tender in.
Our South of France sailing fleet is small and deliberately so: six yachts from 43 to 65 metres, at weekly rates between roughly 91,000 and 245,000 euros. It includes Creole, the 65-metre Camper and Nicholsons schooner of 1927 and the largest wooden sailing yacht ever built, which is exactly the sort of boat this regatta exists for.
