Now in its 42nd year, the Cannes Yachting Festival was held in the chic French resort of Cannes. The catwalk show for yachts, the festival is the yacht companies' first opportunity to showcase their new models for the year ahead.
The Cannes Yachting Festival celebrates the luxury lifestyle that is yachting, and it is the largest in-water exhibition of large sailing boats in the world. The numbers speak for themselves with 127 world premieres to marvel at, 611 exhibitors, 650 boats from 2 to 65m long and 54,000 visitors over the five day event.
The DESTINATION - SAILING team was there to catch up on the latest news, see the newest yacht models and soak up the fantastic atmosphere this annual event always brings to Cannes.
This year was the inaugural year for the La Regata which was incorporated into the festival's events calendar on the 12th and 13th of September.
The action-packed two day race was introduced to the festival's programme to mark the opening of the new sailing area in Port Canto. The participants sailed from this new area to Cannes Bay where spectators watched the highs and lows of the race.
The two day race saw five teams compete on board the multihulls of the Tour Voile vessels in a four round competition.
The teams were named as follows:
Grégory Lemarchal, Les Sables d'Olonne, Pink Lady - Pays de l'Or, Sud de France, Mathilde Geron for the La Boulengère team, Team Réseau IXIO - Toulon Provence Méditerranée and Team Océwood #WaterFamily.
With Isabelle Autissier, president of WWF France, a sailor through and through, named as the Yachting Festival's Guest of Honour and Armel Le Cléac'h, 2008 IMOCA world champion and winner of the 2016 Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race, named as Ambassador to the Yachting Festival, the 42nd Cannes Yachting Festival was as influential as ever.
DESTINATION - SAILING Photographer Sébastien Rohner was in the midst of the action during La Regata with an up close and personal experience on board one of the participating yachts.
Action shots from the event were taken just for DESTINATION - SAILING readers, capturing the spray, the adrenaline, the victories and the defeats, but overall the competitive spirit of two innovative days at the festival.
Finally, for those of you itching to know who won La Regata, well, the team to sail away with the first ever La Regata accolade was Team Réseau IXIO - Toulon Provence Méditerranée!
Photography by Sébastien Rohner
Words by Catherine McTeigue