Opposite: the pretty port of Saint-Tropez fills up with both modern and classic boats for the 10-day event at the end of September. Here Prada CEO Patrizio Bertelli’s immaculate 12 Metre Nyala trails the Wally 62 Lyra out to the racecourse. Over the last couple of years this regatta was split into two weeks with classics in the first, modern yachts second. But the crowds, who create so much of the atmosphere, only came for the classics, so the original mix plus some of the old Nioulargue programme was revived for 2023. Three P Class yachts (above) from 1911 and 1913 were being raced in 2023, with French America’s Cup skipper and Louis Vuitton Cup creator Bruno Troublé, 78, at the helm of the 1913 Olympian which he had discovered in Chicago in 2013 and then had restored


resented the sentence which he said looked as if the court assumed the two vessels were sailing in open water, and not racing. In reality, Mariette, on port tack to


weather of Taos Brett, was a few minutes from her start and she had other large vessels to consider, especially Candida which was on a reciprocal course – on star- board. The schooners Altair and Boheme II were also at close and closing quarters. Rather dangerously, the buoy Taos Brett was making for was also one end of Mari- ette’s starting line. As Taos Brett got closer, calling for water, Mariette bore up to meet Candida; photos show just feet between the port gunwales of the giant yachts. It sure killed the racing. But even before


1995 several commentators were saying that the evocatively named La Nioulargue had become unmanageable. This was partly due to the numbers of boats of dis- parate size, and also due to charter skippers adopting aggressive tactics while racing against others who mistakenly believed this to be a more gentlemanly affair. Some cited drinking aboard as a cause


of aggression. Spectator boats, camera boats, racers and participants of every


kind were descending on the little gulf in ever-increasing numbers. There could be upwards of 300 vessels afloat, all going in different directions. It was becoming less like yacht racing and more like a Saturday Sainsbury’s trolley jostle, with some boats’ varnishwork and crew attire belying their helm’s blissful ignorance of the rules… with a sprinkle of road rage to boot. But trolleys are the same size. When you


get 160-ton schooners rounding marks with five-tonners, you don’t want any jostling – let alone aggression. Or rather, you want some, because that makes for a degree of excitement, but too much will result in accidents. And when one of those is a death, the media and authorities can quickly close you down. Owners don’t come for a parade of sail,


though, or a sardine supper… they want to race. This day at Club 55 – the place where it all started (see last month) – was sup- posed to be a race day, but the mistral blew old sabots last night, and class meets were cancelled. Predictably the weather turned beautiful just before lunch, but by then everyone was off doing their own thing. I tagged along on the promise of a


swim with the crew of the 48ft Oryx, John Illingworth’s last boat, built in 1966. She is of unusual mahogany carvel construction with strips of acacia wood rather than caulking between her planks. I’d met them the day before, when I


stepped off Outlaw – another great Illing- worth design of 1963, belonging to the Antibes-based broker Mike Horsley – after Thursday’s racing. He’d kindly invited me aboard and let me do mainsheet, a posi- tion I accepted with grateful and proud alacrity, until I realised that the incessant squinting at the tell tales aloft and constant grinding of the winch would leave me unable to de-crick my neck to look down or with enough power in my right arm to toast our success at the day’s end. The old sabots had started blowing in


the last hour of the race, and it was sport to watch the classics round the last weather mark, paying out their massive boom and gaff and go off at a comfy squat in the squall-dark chop, pressed to hull speed with quarter waves washing over their counter. When it was the large moderns’ turn, lured perhaps by the steady- looking classics, the manoeuvres were 


SEAHORSE 49


DAN HOUSTON


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