Over 120 vintage boats at the 17th Monaco Classic Week

Over 120 classic and vintage sailing and motor boats expected at the 17th Monaco Classic Week
The 2025 edition will take place from 10 to 13 September 2025 in Monte Carlo, on the occasion of the 17th edition of the Monaco Classic Week – La Belle Classe (www.monacoclassicweek.com), the exclusive, invitation-only event launched in 1994 and organised every two years by the Yacht Club de Monaco, chaired by H.S.H. Prince Albert II. This is the most important and prestigious gathering of its kind in the world, bringing together in a single port the largest and most exceptional fleet of historically significant vessels in sailing and motorboating history.

Boats from around the world will attend, launched as early as the late 19th century and designed by legendary naval architects including England’s Charles E. Nicholson, Scotland’s William Fife, George L. Watson and Alfred Mylne, Americans Sparkman & Stephens, Nathanaël G. Herreshoff and John G. Alden, Frenchmen Eugène Cornu and François Camatte, Norway’s Johan Anker, and Italians Carlo Sciarrelli and Vittorio Baglietto.
The event will welcome 60 vintage sailboats, as many runabouts and motorboats (including a fleet of Rivas), around 15 motor yachts up to 80 metres in length, and a dozen Dinghy 12’, the former Olympic class dinghy designed in 1913 by George Cockshott.
Access to the quays and the Exhibitors’ Village (featuring painters, photographers, craftsmen, and the YCM Official Boutique) will be free and open to the public from Wednesday 10 to Saturday 13 September, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m..

Historic highlights and unique vessels
It took 17 years to restore Partridge, one of the most elegant gaff-rigged Victorian cutters still sailing. Built in 1885 by Camper & Nicholsons in Gosport, England, and designed by J. Beavor Webb, it was once used as a houseboat, rescued from the mud of the River Blackwater in 1979, and restored in a garden on the Isle of Wight. It returned to sailing in 1998 and will celebrate its 140th anniversary in Monte Carlo.

Nearly 60 sailboats will be present, including legendary schooners like the 65-metre Creole (1927), the majestic Elena of London (2009), Puritan (1931), and Zaca (1929), which became Errol Flynn’s floating home in 1946 and was later used by Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai starring Rita Hayworth.
Also attending: Invader (1905), celebrating 120 years, which hosted movie stars like Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin, who met his future wife Paulette Goddard on board.

The event will also mark 30 years of Tuiga in the Yacht Club de Monaco fleet. Launched in 1909 by the Scottish shipyard Fife, this nearly 28-metre yacht is one of only four 15-Metre International Rule boats still sailing today. Since 2023, another yacht joined the fleet: Argynne III, a 1955 canoe-stern Bermudan sloop designed by Eugène Cornu and built by Bonnin.

Also present: Manitou (1937), dubbed the “Floating White House” for its use by President John F. Kennedy, and several century-old classics including Black Swan (1899), Kismet (1898), Mariette (1915), Lulu (1897), Barbara (1923), Viola (1908), Chips (1913), Greylag (1932), and Brynhilde (1958).

Around 15 motor yachts are registered, built between 1906 and 1974, led by the 79-metre steamship Delphine (1921), followed by the 45-metre Kalizma (1906, G.L. Watson), gifted by Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor after her Oscar win for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Now available for charter, Kalizma is known as the “Orient Express of the seas.”

A fleet of over 50 motorboats will attend, including runabouts, vaporetto-style launches, and vintage powerboats – among them the iconic Rivas, the world-famous mahogany boats built in 4,098 units by Carlo Riva, including models like Aquarama, Tritone, Ariston, and Olympic.

Vessels will be judged by a panel chaired by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to complete a solo non-stop circumnavigation (1968–1969), with Piero Maria Gibellini, Riva’s leading historian and biographer, as juror. The prestigious La Belle Classe Restoration Prize will be awarded, while a jury chaired by Allegra Gucci will assess etiquette, style and “Art de Vivre la Mer” for the Elegance Contest.

The Chefs Competition will also return, challenging crews to create gourmet dishes onboard using mystery ingredients supplied in a surprise box.

Info: www.ycm.org