There is a particular sound a big classic yacht makes when she heels and accelerates: the rigging tightens, the wake starts to hiss, and the whole hull seems to lean into the wind and sigh. I heard it for the first time from the cockpit of my own modest 34-footer, parked at anchor off Cannes, watching an 8 Metre from the 1930s carve past close enough that I could read the worry on the helmsman's face. I have been chasing that sound around the Riviera every autumn since.
The Cote d'Azur in September and early October becomes the centre of the classic yachting world. Three events, strung along forty miles of coast, draw the most beautiful old boats afloat. If you cruise the coast in your own boat, you can follow the whole circuit and watch from the best seats in the house, which are on the water.
The three regattas worth planning a cruise around
The season actually opens in June, not the autumn. Les Voiles d'Antibes is the first major classic gathering of the Mediterranean year, held in Port Vauban. In 2025 it ran from 4 to 8 June and celebrated its 30th anniversary, and it now invites a small fleet of 1950s motor yachts alongside the sailing classics. It is a quieter, more intimate event than the big autumn shows, and a lovely way to start a season on the coast.
The autumn pair are the headline acts. The Regates Royales de Cannes is the grand classic regatta of the calendar, held in late September. The 2025 edition, the 48th, ran from 22 to 27 September and drew more than 120 classic and traditional yachts into the Baie de Cannes. The fleet spans Epoque and Classic divisions, the Metre classes from the 6 Metre up to the 12 Metre, the International Dragon class, and the local Tofinou 9.5 day boats. The Dragon fleet alone is one of the biggest gatherings of that class anywhere.
Then the circus moves twenty-odd miles west for the grand finale. Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez closes the season, and in 2025 it ran from 27 September to 5 October with more than 240 yachts entered, including upward of 70 boats over 20 metres and a record 41 Maxis. I have written a dedicated piece on the voiles de saint-tropez for visitors because it deserves its own treatment, but treat it as the climax of the circuit rather than a standalone event.
Following the circuit by boat
The beauty of this stretch of coast is that the three venues are close together. Antibes, Cannes and Saint-Tropez sit within a day's sail of one another, and the racing weeks chain naturally. If you plan a September cruise from Monaco west, you can catch the tail of Cannes and the start of Saint-Tropez in the same fortnight. My monaco to saint-tropez cruise piece lays out the legs and the anchorages along the way.
The key practical reality is that you do not berth in the host harbours during the regattas. They are full of competitors. The Vieux Port of Cannes and the old port of Saint-Tropez are given over to the racing fleet, and what berths exist for visitors are booked far ahead at peak prices. The smart move is to anchor and watch from outside the marina.
That suits the spectating anyway. The racing happens in the bay, not in the harbour, so being at anchor in the bay puts you closer to the action than any pontoon. Off Cannes, the Iles de Lerins give you a sheltered base two and a half miles from the start line. Off Saint-Tropez, the anchorages in the gulf, around Pampelonne and the Baie des Canebiers, put you on the edge of the course. The cote dazur marina fees on this coast make anchoring the obvious choice in any case during the September peak.
How to watch without getting in the way
This matters, and it is where visiting cruisers sometimes get it wrong. These are racing yachts, many of them a century old, worth more than a house, and they do not stop or turn quickly. A 40-metre schooner under full sail will not give way to your cruising boat just because the rules of the road say she might. Stay well clear of the course, keep out of the start and finish areas, and never park yourself between two competitors.
The organisers usually mark the course and patrol it with safety ribs who will move you on if you stray inside. The trick is to position downwind of the leeward mark or near a turning mark outside the laylines, where the boats funnel together and the manoeuvres get exciting, then hold station under engine or lie quietly at anchor if depth allows. Bring a long lens. The light on the Riviera in late September is glorious, lower and softer than the August glare, and the photographs you take of a gaff cutter against the Esterel hills will be the ones you frame.
Keep your VHF on the working channel the regatta announces, usually published in the notice of race, so you hear any course changes or safety calls. And watch the spectator fleet as much as the racers: on a big day off Saint-Tropez there can be hundreds of boats milling about, and the swell from all that wash gets confused and uncomfortable.
One more thing about the boats themselves. Many of these classics carry huge overlapping headsails and run long bowsprits, so their actual length on the water is greater than it looks, and their booms sweep wide on a gybe. Give them twice the room you think you need. The crews are professionals and they are concentrating hard, and the last thing anyone wants is a cruising boat under their lee bow at the windward mark.
Reading the autumn weather
September on the Cote d'Azur is not the settled summer that people imagine. The first autumn depressions push through the Gulf of Lion, and the mistral can fill in hard from the northwest with little warning beyond the forecast. The regattas regularly lose a day to too much wind or, more often on this coast, too little. I have sat through a glassy calm off Cannes watching a hundred classics drift in a dying breeze, and I have watched the safety ribs cancel racing in a 30-knot mistral the following afternoon.
If you are following the circuit, build slack into your plan. Do not commit to a passage to the next venue if a blow is coming. My piece on reading the mistral covers the synoptic pattern to watch, and it is exactly the wind that defines this stretch of coast in autumn. The sea temperature is still a kind 22 to 23 degrees, so the swimming is good between races, but the wind is the thing that will shape your fortnight.
Why it is worth the effort
You can watch a classic regatta from a cafe on the quay, drink in hand, and have a perfectly nice time. But you will be watching the boats come and go, not racing. From your own deck out in the bay you see the whole thing: the jockeying at the start, the spinnakers blooming at the leeward mark, the close crosses that make your stomach lurch. And at the end of the day, when the fleet has gone in and the bay falls quiet, you are still out there at anchor with the sunset on the old hulls. That, more than any harbourside view, is why you bring your own boat to the Riviera in September.
