LES VOILES DE SAINT TROPEZ 2025

Heirs to the Nioulargue, the Voiles de Saint-Tropez express an exceptional alchemy, a combination of the pleasure of sailing and an innate sense of celebration. Patrice de Colmont, director of Club 55 and founder of the event, and André Beaufils, Past-President of the SNST, testify.

It is said that the origin of Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez lies in a meeting that took place over thirty years ago. How did it all start ?

Patrice de Colmont. By a happy coincidence! At the end of September 1981, an American couple with a competition Swan stayed in Saint-Tropez after having competed in the Swan Cup in Porto Cervo. They took part in a few regattas at the SNST, got to know some people and, one day, while the owner was talking about his successes in regattas, the 12 Meter Ikra entered the port. Someone said, “What about Ikra, do you think you could beat her? Immediate answer: “Why not, if Ikra accepts the challenge. I immediately ran to Jean Laurain, skipper of Ikra, who agreed to go out for a regatta the next day. That’s how it all started, with a crazy challenge between a Swan 44 and a 12 Meter JI!

It was already the alliance of the ancient and the modern. What was the outcome of the fight ?

Patrice de Colmont. On the morning of the departure, with a friend, we want to buy a marine map to define the route. But we find it too expensive and we fall back on a road map where we pencil in the blue zone marked “golfe de Saint-Tropez”! The start is given in front of the Portalet tower, we turn the buoy of the Nioulargue shoal and the finish is judged in front of my house, at the Club 55, where a big table is waiting for everyone. Ikra comes first, well ahead of Pride, the Swan 44, but all that is secondary. The crews have lunch together and, as a trophy, I present the winner with a silver compotier from the French Navy’s crockery. The atmosphere is in full swing when the correspondent of Var Matin arrives and asks who these people are who seem to be having so much fun. I explain to him that it is a regatta. “Ah! What regatta?” I answer : “But… the Club 55 Cup !” and the crews add to this by declaring : “It was very hard, a high level challenge, we will have our revenge next year”, etc. The next day, the headline in Var Matin: “A new America’s Cup is born!

Website: https://www.lesvoilesdesaint-tropez.fr/en