Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website 14th Monaco Classic Week: Stars and Stripes forever!
september 13, 2019 - Monaco Classic Week

14th Monaco Classic Week: Stars and Stripes forever!


11-15 September 2019: tribute to American yachts which dominated the international stage from 1851 to1973

Monaco Classic Week is ongoing now! This is the only gathering of classic boats that invites both sailing and motor boats, with around 130 registered. They include 74 classic and metric class sailing yachts, as well as 30 motor boats, represented by the symbols of the Mediterranean, the Riva, and for the United States by a fleet of Chris Craft, true icons of Americanlakes.

It will be the first time of Atlantic 2010 in the Principality (replica of the 1903 three-masted schooner on which Charlie Barr, in 1905, established the best time for a crossing of the Atlantic). Another icon, SS Delphine (1921), the 79-meter steamship built for the wife of automobile magnate Horace E. Dodge, makes a welcome return. It was on this beauty that three world leaders, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, negotiated at least part of the 1945 Yalta Agreement. 

‘BORN IN THE USA’

In Port Hercule, on the docks and in the Clubhouse, the YCM celebrates the stars of American yachting, heroes of the East Coast, territory of the New York #yacht Club whose members have written this formidable saga. Through their creations, it will be possible to meet again the designers, from Starling Burgess, Nathanael G. Herreshoff and John G. Alden, not to mention their prolific and prestigious successors, Olin Stephens and his partner Roderick Sparkman, and Dick Carter, the whose clients had names like Vanderbilt, Rockfeller, Pierpont Morgan, Gorbes and JohnKennedy. 

Yachting, like the America's Cup, is more than just a game, it is a combination of high-level creativity, industry and sport. But also economic rivalry. Sir Thomas Lipton and Marcel Bich, industrials of tea and disposable ballpoint pens, were certainly convinced of this, financing America's Cup challenges, winning over the American public with an effective and subtle marketing operation. 

With American gigantism, yachting developed to the highest level, so much so that the Yankees came to beat the British on their own ground, in Cowes, in front of Queen Victoria, one day in June 1851. The losers wanted revenge. The winners agreed to receive them in their waters and the challenge took the name of the famous 1851 schooner, America, whose faithful reply will be moored in the #yacht Club marina.

These designers, initially inspired by the great Maine fishing schooners, have innovated very quickly to resist the onslaught of the most beautiful British yachts, designed by Watson, Fife, Mylne ...

NEWS FOR THIS EDITION

On the water 

This year, the metric classes, born after the creation of the international caliber of 1906, are invited to Monaco: 6 M JI, 8 M JI, 12 M JI and 15 M JI, which includes Tuiga, the emblematic sailing ship of the #yacht Club de Monaco, which is 110 years old this year. The opportunity is to see in racing what was best to compete, as evidenced by the good health of the 6 meter and 8 meter classes. The 12 M JI will be represented by La Spina, an Italian design and design masterpiece, and a welcome return, French Kiss, just released from the restoration sites, which in 1987, helmed by Marc Pajot, achieved the best performance so far of a French boat in the Cup, meaning to reach the Challenger semi-finals in Perth.

The International Schooner Association has chosen Monaco, after Capri, for the second stage of its young history, the Schooner Cup Series. A dozen schooners, including Invader (1905), Puritan (1930) or Elena of London 2009 (replica of 1910), will give the pier a historic appearance, when they came to spend the winter waiting for spring and attended the Motorboating Meetings.

Among the new arrivals of the Monaco Classic Week: Atlantic, the famous schooner of the New York #yacht Club that in 1905 established the best time on the Atlantic Ocean crossing, in 12 days, 4 hours 1 minute and 19 seconds. Rebuilt under the direction of Ed Kastelein, a specialist in the replication of famous sailboats, the Atlantic, with its 66 meters, is an identical replica of the three- masted schooner that Charlie Barr had ordered to conquer the Kaiser's Cup in May 1905. It was only on 1 August 1980 that Eric Tabarly improved this reference time on a path of 2,925 miles.

Next to these prestigious fleets we find the Dinghys 12 ', small sailboats, real jewels of painted wood and shiny accessories, a swarm of twenty butterflies that circle the bay.

Ashore

A reminder that quays are open to the public who are free to stroll around the Monaco Classic Week Village of around 20 exhibitors all linked to classic yachts: boatyards, craftsmen, marine painters, sculptors and photographers, with an overall American theme for the decor.

In front of the YCM Clubhouse, a new exhibition a one-off G.L. Watson and the America’s Cup exhibition will delight classic #yacht fans who for the first time on this side of the Atlantic can find out more about those early boats, which competed in the America’s Cup and established USA supremacy. The exhibition on the Quai Louis II features previously unpublished photos of the

George Lennox Watson archive, the unfortunate Scottish designer, author of four British Challengers including a Shamrock for Sir Thomas Lipton. A pioneer of industrial espionage, for each edition of the Cup he obtained photographs of American boats in action or in the courtyard to study them. This unique and historically significant collection was made available to the #yacht Club by G. L. Watson & Co in Liverpool. 

Spectacle accessible to all!

Regularity and maneuverability competitions for motor boats, races for sailing yachts and elegance parades - chaired by H.R.R. The Princess Beatriz de Orleans Borbon in the presence of S.H.S. The Princess Camilla de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles - are just some of the highlights that await the spectators. Ashore, chefs on classic yachts challenge each other to produce the most creative original dish in a culinary competition on the quay. For members and participants, the decks of the #yacht Club offer panoramic views of the bay, as well as the walls of the main harbor and other vantage points of Munich for the public.

It is time to take a step back in time to relive the passion that yachtsmen had already over a centuryago and which continues to motivate those who restore, maintain and sail these precious testimoniesof our maritime #heritage.