Yacht charter Cannes & Antibes

Why here rather than Monaco

The cruising ground is identical — the same twenty-five miles of coast, the same islands, the same restaurants. What differs is the infrastructure behind it, and on almost every practical measure it favours Antibes.

Port Vauban is one of the largest marinas in Europe and includes, on its eastern side, the quay that everyone calls the Billionaires’ Quay — a run of berths built for very large yachts. Capacity here is a different order from Port Hercule, which means a berth is a booking rather than a campaign.

Antibes is also the crew capital of the Mediterranean. The captains, engineers, chefs and stewardesses who staff the European fleet live here, the agencies that place them are here, and the chandlery and provisioning that supply them are here. When something breaks at eleven on a Saturday night, this is the best possible place for it to happen.

Cannes, six miles west, offers the Vieux Port and Port Canto, a shorter walk to somewhere worth walking to, and the Croisette. For a party that wants the town at the end of the gangway rather than a working harbour, Cannes is the better embarkation.

The two weeks to avoid

Both are excellent reasons to come and terrible weeks to arrive without having planned for them.

The Film Festival, May

Cannes becomes unreachable, berths in the Vieux Port are allocated far in advance at extraordinary rates, and the anchorage off the Croisette fills with yachts being used as floating offices. If you are attending, book eighteen months out. If you are not, start from Antibes and stay away from Cannes until the Sunday after.

The Yachting Festival, September

The Vieux Port and Port Canto are given over to the show for the best part of a week. It is the largest in-water show in Europe and worth seeing, but it removes Cannes as a charter base for the duration.

Outside those, the late-May Grand Prix week in Monaco has a knock-on effect along this whole coast, because yachts and berths are drawn east. Rates in Antibes rise in sympathy even though the race is thirty miles away.

The week, west and east

Two directions, and the better answer depends less on the coast than on how much of it the party has already seen.

West — the classic

Antibes to the Îles de Lérins, which are two pine-covered islands forty minutes off Cannes and are the single most underrated anchorage on this coast. Sainte-Marguerite has the fort and the better swimming; Saint-Honorat is a working monastery that makes and sells its own wine. Then Golfe-Juan, Saint-Tropez, Pampelonne, and the Baie de Cavalaire.

East — the quieter one

Cap d’Antibes, Villefranche, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, and across the Italian border to San Remo and the Ligurian coast. Shorter legs, fewer yachts, materially cheaper ashore, and better food. This is what we suggest for a second or third Riviera week.

Distances throughout are small — Antibes to Saint-Tropez is about thirty-five nautical miles — so the week is governed by where you want to have dinner rather than by passage planning.

What it costs

Slightly below Monaco for an equivalent yacht, chiefly because berthing is cheaper and there is no event premium baked into the base rate. The gap is real but not dramatic; this is still the most expensive coast in the Mediterranean.

The Advance Provisioning Allowance runs at thirty per cent here for the same reason it does in Monaco: berthing on this coast in season is expensive and the legs are short and frequent. Expect French VAT on the charter fee, calculated on an actual-use basis since the 2020 change, stated separately and confirmed in the contract.

Nice Côte d’Azur is twenty-five minutes from Port Vauban and is the second-busiest airport in France, with the helicopter transfer to Monaco running from the same field. Getting here is the easy part of this coast.

The anchorages worth knowing

This coast is short on genuinely sheltered water and long on places that are wonderful in the right conditions and untenable in the wrong ones. The difference between a good week here and an indifferent one is largely a captain who knows which is which on the day.

Îles de Lérins

The best anchorage within reach of Cannes and consistently underused. The channel between Sainte-Marguerite and Saint-Honorat gives shelter from most summer conditions, the holding is good, and by seven in the evening the day boats have gone and you have a pine island largely to yourself. If we could put one stop into every Riviera week, it would be this one.

Cap d’Antibes and the Baie de la Garoupe

Twenty minutes from Port Vauban, sheltered from the west, and spectacular in the late afternoon light. It fills early in August and the swimming areas are buoyed, so the hour you arrive decides the quality of the spot.

Golfe-Juan

Large, sandy, well sheltered from the east, and the practical answer when the weather makes the more exposed anchorages uncomfortable. Unglamorous, and the one the crew will quietly propose when the forecast turns.

Pampelonne

The Saint-Tropez beach anchorage: entirely open, entirely dependent on settled conditions, and the first place to become unpleasant when the wind goes east. Superb for a long lunch. Never plan to spend the night there.

The prevailing summer pattern is a light sea breeze building through the afternoon, punctuated by the mistral — a strong, dry north-westerly that can blow for three days and rearranges any itinerary built around open anchorages. It is not dangerous on a well-found yacht with a competent crew. It is simply the reason to keep the plan loose and let the captain move it.

Questions