Where was the Nioulargue buoy?

Offshore from the bay of Pampelonne. It was the turning mark of the original course, between the Tour du Portalet and the finish in front of the Club 55. The Club 55 Cup still uses it every year.

Why is Les Voiles not called the Nioulargue?

Because the 1999 revival came under a new organisation, after three years of interruption and a fatal accident. The name belongs to another era. The organisers of Les Voiles nonetheless keep counting Nioulargue anniversaries alongside their own: two names for one lineage.

Can you watch the Club 55 Cup?

Yes, and for free, from the môle or from the Pampelonne beach for the finish. It is the most discreet duel of the week: two boats offshore while three hundred others race elsewhere. The exact date is announced in the official Voiles programme.

Are boats that raced the Nioulargue still sailing?

Yes, a large part of the classic fleet that raced then comes back every year for Les Voiles, often after restorations undertaken precisely so they could keep racing. It is the best place to see them, and the only week they are all in one place.

Are the Nioulargue and the Giraglia connected?

Not at all. The Giraglia was born in 1952 in a Paris cafe, leaves in June for Italy and belongs to offshore racing. The Nioulargue was born in 1981 from a local wager and never left the gulf.

The Nioulargue, the story behind Les Voiles

Photo: Jean Francois Fournier Photographe from cannes, france · CC BY 2.0

Histoire de la voile · Disparue en 1995, devenue les Voiles en 1999

The Nioulargue, the story behind Les Voiles

No, the Nioulargue does not take place every autumn. It stopped in 1995 and gave rise to Les Voiles. This page tells a story rather than announcing a fixture: that of a fourteen-year race that remains the moral reference of Mediterranean classic sailing.

From September 1981 to 1999, fourteen years and a full stop

It starts with a wager. In September 1981, two boats challenge each other off Saint-Tropez: the Swan Pride, carrying Pierre Roinson, president of the Société nautique de Saint-Tropez, and the 12 m Ikra. The course is improvised and perfect: start at the Tour du Portalet, round a buoy offshore, finish in front of the Club 55 on the Pampelonne beach. At the finish, Patrice de Colmont, who runs the Club 55, hands the winner an improvised cup. The buoy on the course is called la Nioulargue, Provençal for the nest out at sea. The name moves from the turning mark to the whole race, and then to an entire era.

Patrice de Colmont grows the event while keeping its founding spirit: no sealed categories, no hierarchy. Production boats find themselves on the same water as highly sophisticated maxis, racing prototypes and restored classic yachts. Without quite meaning to, the Nioulargue invents the format of the Mediterranean classic regatta: a week of coastal racing, unapologetic conviviality, and an end of day ashore at least as important as the racing itself.

In 1995 a collision kills a man during the event. It stops, and does not take place for three years. Only in 1999 does Tropezian sailing pick up the thread, under a new name and a different organisation: Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. The Nioulargue name comes off the poster, but the fleet, the time of year and the spirit stay.

What it changed, in sailing and in the village

It is hard today to measure how new that format was. In the early 1980s competitive sailing was compartmentalised: old boats did not race, or raced among themselves at obscure gatherings. Classic yachts were often treated as expensive decorative objects.

By putting them on the water alongside racing prototypes, the Nioulargue gave them a reason to exist beyond heritage. A boat that races is a boat that gets maintained, restored and passed on. Many of the major restorations carried out in the Mediterranean through the 1980s and 1990s are directly tied to the existence of an event at which to show the result. That is the least visible part of the legacy, and probably the most important. A fleet that returns every year also keeps sailmakers, shipwrights and riggers in work right around the gulf.

The village gained its late season. Before 1981, October was a dead month in Saint-Tropez. Today, between Les Voiles, Paradis Porsche and the Grande Braderie, it is a full one. The last two settled in the wake of the first: Paradis Porsche was created in 1993, a week after the Nioulargue, precisely to catch a village that was still alive.

Classic yachts in the gulf of Saint-Tropez — Voiliers en navigation dans le golfe de Saint Tropez. Vue prise d'un bateau qui suivait la régate. Photo: Dicard · CC BY-SA 3.0

Why Saint-Tropez, and nowhere else

The 1981 wager could have been laid anywhere on the coast. That it grew into a global fixture comes down to three things, none of them accidental.

The water. The gulf is wide, sheltered, and opens to the sea through a single entrance. You can lay long coastal courses on it without ever leaving the shore behind, which is exactly what is needed for spectators to see anything from land.

The wind. The local pattern alternates mistral, coming down from the north-west, with afternoon thermal breezes. That gives varied and often usable conditions in autumn, when plenty of other Mediterranean venues have already turned unstable.

The harbour. Three hundred boats, some of them very large, have to lie in the same place for a week. Few Mediterranean harbours allow it, and fewer still with the village fifty metres from the pontoons.

What survives: the Club 55 Cup

The original course has not gone. Since its revival in 2003, the Club 55 Cup has been sailed every year in the middle of Les Voiles week, and it is the direct tribute to the 1981 race.

The principle has stayed delightfully archaic. Two boats only face each other on the historic course: Tour du Portalet, Nioulargue buoy, finish in front of the Club 55. The winner leaves with the right to challenge the boat of their choice the following year. The rules provide that any protest must be lodged together with a deposit of chilled local rosé. And the whole thing ends with lunch under the tamarisks.

Where to find traces of this story

The Club 55, on the Pampelonne beach, remains the founding address. The cup is still handed over there, the place has made no attempt to turn itself into a museum, and the name is still a subject of conversation.

The Tour du Portalet, the historic start, sits at the harbour mouth and is five minutes on foot from the quay. During Les Voiles, the bar at its base is one of the rallying points of the week.

The harbour itself holds classic boats all year. A walk along the quays, midweek and off-season, lets you see them with no crowd and no ticket: the quai d'honneur, to the east, gathers the largest.

The Citadelle, for the overall view of the water where it all happened: in one glance you take in the harbour, the mouth of the gulf and, in the distance, the bay of Pampelonne. From the coastal path, which runs along the gulf's exit, you are closest to the boats going past.

The vocabulary, so you never mix them up again

La Nioulargue: the name of the buoy, then of the regatta sailed from 1981 to 1995. It no longer exists as an event, and the sites announcing dates for it are copying an old error.
Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez: the current event, since 1999, late September into early October. That is the one to go to.
The Club 55 Cup: the two-boat duel, revived in 2003, sailed midweek during Les Voiles on the original course.
The Giraglia: an entirely different regatta, older, leaving Saint-Tropez in June for Italy. It tells the other half of the Tropezian sailing story, more sporting and turned towards Italy.

Questions we get asked

Where was the Nioulargue buoy?: Offshore from the bay of Pampelonne. It was the turning mark of the original course, between the Tour du Portalet and the finish in front of the Club 55. The Club 55 Cup still uses it every year.
Why is Les Voiles not called the Nioulargue?: Because the 1999 revival came under a new organisation, after three years of interruption and a fatal accident. The name belongs to another era. The organisers of Les Voiles nonetheless keep counting Nioulargue anniversaries alongside their own: two names for one lineage.
Can you watch the Club 55 Cup?: Yes, and for free, from the môle or from the Pampelonne beach for the finish. It is the most discreet duel of the week: two boats offshore while three hundred others race elsewhere. The exact date is announced in the official Voiles programme.
Are boats that raced the Nioulargue still sailing?: Yes, a large part of the classic fleet that raced then comes back every year for Les Voiles, often after restorations undertaken precisely so they could keep racing. It is the best place to see them, and the only week they are all in one place.
Are the Nioulargue and the Giraglia connected?: Not at all. The Giraglia was born in 1952 in a Paris cafe, leaves in June for Italy and belongs to offshore racing. The Nioulargue was born in 1981 from a local wager and never left the gulf.

Source: Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez

#sailing#history#regatta#club 55#heritage

Published on September 2, 2026

See you there. I am the one in the panama hat.

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