Yachting on the Côte de Provence is largely for the wealthy, but anyone may walk along the docksides, attend the Monaco boat show, watch a regatta, or perhaps, with the right experience and luck, even get a job on a yacht. After all, our daughter Alison did just that, working initially as a stewardess, then as a cook, more recently as a professional writer, and now as the Marketing Director for an international yacht broking firm.

Whatever we think about the wealthy, we can thank them for making possible the preservation of many wonderful yachts, and the season of regattas and classic yacht races that runs every summer in the Mediterranean.

This is a very ‘English’ recreation which brings together hundreds of magnificent yachts and thousands of crews, spectators and enthusiasts every year.

What, then is so special about the classic yachts? The oldest are more than a hundred years old, the newest may be straight out of the workshop, perhaps constructed from classic plans, but produced in exotic fibres in the ‘spirit’ of traditional design.

Some are ultra-modern classics, like the Wallies, designed with arrogant disregard for any consideration other than extreme elegance, performance and quality.

Many historic wooden yachts have been totally rebuilt,

starting perhaps, in extreme cases, from a few shreds of a rotten hulk, using traditional materials and traditional crafts to exactly reproduce a hull, accommodation and rig of the Edwardian period.

Without a doubt, the enormously expensive 2001-2006 ‘like for like’ restoration of Lulworth, a pitifully derelict 50-metre gaff cutter, was the yacht construction project of the century. Once one of the ‘big five’ racing yachts of the twenties, she is now arguably the most magnificent racing yacht in the world.

The full story of the yacht and her reprieve is told in a magnificent and insanely expensive book.

Classic yachts typically range in size from the gigantic, like Lulworth — ‘J-class boats’ at over 50 metres — through 12 metre classes (typically 20 metres), to relatively tiny one-design daysailers such as Dragons, which race in the Olympics.

Their designers are famous, too, like William Fife,

whose boats have a carved dragon on their bow, or Olin Stephens, who still attends regattas into his nineties!

Incredibly, several of the regular visitors to the regatta, such as Adix or Adela, are far, far too big to fit into St Tropez harbour, and they may be seen anchored outside. And there are even bigger sailing yachts, like Phocean, or Athena, which is 90 metres overall!

The season of Races begins in Italy and concludes in Spain — though some of the yachts continue on to the West Indies for the winter.

St Tropez is the the best regatta for the tourist to visit, as it brings together about 300 of the most immaculate yachts in the world. Even if you can’t go out on a boat to participate in the racing, as we did once, simply walking along the hundreds of metres of beautiful harbour quayside is an extraordinary and uplifting experience.

You will experience a living, moving celebration of wood and design. You will never see shinier bronze, more lovingly varnished mahogany, creamier sailcloth, and more perfectly maintained machines in everyday practical use. And you will hear many Australian and New Zealand accents among the crews and meet plenty of young folk who want to know about the footy finals.

In October 2005, we were privileged to race on the magnificent Thelma, a 65’ gaff cutter built in triple-skinned kauri to an amazingly innovative monocoque design by Arch Logan in New Zealand, 1898. Despite her enormous heavy sails and spars, she is not equipped with a single winch or labour-saving device, and we all returned to the dock each day exhausted and with burning hands.

Logan yachts are protected by New Zealand heritage laws as cultural icons, and may not be permanently removed from the country!