Sport

Romantic Symbols of the Sea

Nice is one of only a handful of airports offering so many competing helicopter services that they have a separate check-in section. Affluent airline passengers use them to fly on to Saint-Tropez, about 30 minutes away, where local residents in the town are threatening to block access to the heliport if the regulations designed to reduce noise are not enforced. Except when landing, helicopters are required to remain above 3,000 metres and no flights are allowed between midday and 5pm or between 8pm and 10am the following day.

For villa owners and renters outside Saint-Tropez, however, the sight of soundless, distant helicopters criss-crossing the sky simply adds to the town’s glamorous reputation. They will see plenty of them next month when the usual exotic gin palaces moored in the harbour will be upstaged by boats that require real navigation and handling skills and their owners spare no expense to bring in top sailing professionals.

 

 

In the first week of October more than 300 racing yachts, together with their crews, converge on the town for the 27th Voiles Saint-Tropez Regatta. This is a heady world of clinking champagne glasses, where a sailor who fails to display his Yacht-Master II Rolex (a watch so expensive that for most people it requires a second mortgage to purchase one) is immediately regarded as an also-ran.

Rolex sponsors much of the event, providing huge timepieces to mark the start and finish, and a trophy for the winner of the classic division over 16 metres. This race, held on Thursday, attracts the most traditional sailing yachts of breathtaking beauty. Special trips are operated by enterprising boatmen so that non-aquatic visitors can admire at close hand these romantic symbols of the sea, reminders of the time when the only noise in the air came from a creaking sail.

From our September 2008 e-newsletter