PUTTING ON A SHOW

LES VOILES DE SAINT-TROPEZ IS SAILING'S GREATEST SPECTACLE. DAN HOUSTON EXAMINES ITS ENDURING APPEAL

- DAN HOUSTON

While for many of us October sees our thoughts turn to bringing boats ashore or preparing them to overwinter, in Saint-Tropez some 2,500 sailors are enjoying a 10-day international regatta in T-shirt weather. 

This year saw Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez celebrate its 25th anniversary, though its history stretches back further, stemming as it does from the Nioulargue, which began in 1983. Over 40 years the event has established a precedence as being the first and finest regatta of its kind in the Mediterranean, with the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez (SNST), managing to create a world class sailing spectacle from its modest clubhouse in this former fishing port. The south of France town usually hosts a population of just 3,600, its numbers swelling to almost double that for 10 days during the regatta.

And the little harbour is full of yachts – 250 of them from large classic schooners to dayboats. With a mix of maxi, modern and classic yachts the roads off the small port are a jostling jamboree of designs from the latest launches to the gaff-rigged gentlemen’s yachts of the late 19th century.

Unsurprisingly, the event is a photographer’s paradise. The late summer light is just beginning to suffuse slightly at either end of the day, while the Golfe de Saint-Tropez often enjoys a slight swell which gives a boat a ‘bone in her teeth’ or even a proper bow wave with lots of spray. It was the iconic photographs from those early runnings, published around the world, which drew yachtsmen of all waters to sail here.