48th Régates Royales Day 1: No wind for the start in Cannes

48th Régates Royales Day 1 © Didier Ravon / YCC

On this first day of autumn, it was more like an Indian summer in the bay of Cannes. The 85 competitors waited for more than three hours under a blazing sun, the thermal breeze blocked by a synoptic south-easterly wind, having refused to establish itself. In the Mediterranean, we call it the calm!

The Régates Royales race committees blew the whistle for the end of the recess, and everyone went back to shore. On Wednesday 23rd, weather permitting, the 48th Régates Royales will really begin.

The sublime 25.60-metre Italian Bermudian ketch, designed in 1936 by William Fife III, built in Fairlie in Scotland with teak planks on a steel frame, made its grand return to Cannes during the 48th Régates Royales Day 2, hailed by both the Cannes Yacht Club and its rivals in the "Big Boats" category. Bought in 2007 by the famous watch brand Panerai, which was then in a state of abandonment, Eilean was completely restored until 2009 by the famous Francesco Del Carlo shipyard in Viareggio, Italy, where the boat is based, led by a 100% transalpine crew led by its captain Stefano Valente.

The great Italian photographer Carlo Borlenghi not only had an exceptional eye, but had fallen "in love" with Eilean, which he regularly photographed, but also with the Régates Royales. He who had scoured all the most beautiful spots on the planet, photographed all the major races, and the most beautiful sailboats, paradoxically took years before discovering the Régates Royales, invited by his friend Jean-François Cutugno, president of the Cannes Yacht Club. To pay tribute to the man who was nicknamed "the maestro", and who left us at the end of the summer, a slideshow with his most beautiful images, many of which have already been exhibited during the Régates Royales, is presented in the race village.

Why is the queen of traditional sailing races called the Régates Royales? The King of Norway, Harald V, who died at the end of August 2026, was a seasoned sailor, coming from a family of "sailors" for generations. He participated in the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo and 1968 in Mexico City in the 5.5 Meter class, then in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich in Soling. In particular, he won the One Ton Cup in the Farr Fram X design. His father, the monarch Olav V, was Olympic champion in Amsterdam in 1928 at the helm of a 6 M JI, and knew the bay of Cannes and the Régates Royales well.

It must be said that Christian X, King of Denmark, was Harald V's great-uncle, and according to the archives of the famous magazine "Le Yacht", at the origin of the name of the Régates Royales in 1929, he regularly competed on his 6 Metre JI Dana. Asking the club to organise a regatta in Cannes in the autumn for a few relations and friends - mainly crowned heads - the club gave its approval, but asked if it could name them "Régates Royales". The monarch immediately agreed. The 48th edition organised by the Cannes Yacht Club for almost a century, has never changed its name since.

Partners of the 48th Régates Royales Day 2: City of Cannes Côte d'Azur, TBS, IGY Old Port of Cannes, Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, Maison Saint-Aix, Carlton Cannes Regent Hotel, Alpes Maritimes Department, South Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur Region.

www.yachtclubdecannes.org