Classic splendour

The Mediterranean fleet descends upon Cannes for the Régates Royales - Trophée Prada

Over the weekend, the fleet taking part in the Prada Challenge for Classic Yachts 2002 have been arrived in Cannes. These classic craft have just been taking part in the Coupe d'Automne of the Yacht Club de Monaco and have taken part in a feeder race between Monaco and Cannes, the second leg of the Trophée Grimaldi-Coupe Prada.

Of the exceptional craft taking part perhaps the most notable is Kentra, a gaff ketch built in 1922 and a regular at the Classic Yacht meetings. After some 50,000 miles of intensive cruising on her two year long round the world tour, with final stops in Egypt and Rhodes, she finally returned to Monaco on Friday.

55 yachts took the start of the race from Monaco was at 11:10am in front of the new 352m long semi-floating breakwater off the Port of Monaco. This was set up on 26 August and is part of the extension and redevelopment work being carried out at Port Hercule.

The light wind once again forced the organisers to shorten course, so the finish line moved to in front of Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat.

The winner was the 1937 12-Metre Wings - third in real time in the previous leg. She finished ahead of Wild Horses, sailing in the Spirit of Tradition class, one of the two 77ft W-Class . Another 12-Metre, Ikra, built in 1963 also showed good speed in the light winds by finishing third.

Régates Royales - Trophée Prada

21-29 September 2002

This week of racing in the bay of Cannes will start with the Dragons today while the main classic yachts event will not being until Tuesday.

In total more than 160 boats will once again converge on the port of Cannes to take part in this event, organised by the Cannes Régates Internationales and the Yacht Club de Cannes. Among the fleet there are expected to be 60 classic sailing yachts, seven 12-Metres, six 8-Metres and eight 6-Metres and around 80 Dragons.