French Riviera Yacht Charter

What defines a week on the Riviera isn’t a single highlight but the speed of the changes. A waterfront dinner in Cannes gives way, a few hours’ cruise later, to a quiet bay at Cap Ferrat or Villefranche; a night in Monaco’s harbor to a morning swim off Pampelonne. Because everything is close, you choose the register each day, while the yacht stays constant — a private base from which the whole coast opens up. Here is what that looks like:

✔ Cruising between legendary ports in a single day
✔ Attending global events (Cannes Film Festival, Monaco Grand Prix)
✔ Anchoring off iconic beach clubs
✔ Dining ashore at Michelin-starred restaurants
✔ Enjoying elite nightlife and waterfront venues
✔ Seamless service supported by world-class marinas

The Riviera delivers glamour, precision, and spectacle like nowhere else.

Distances on the Riviera are short — the whole coast from Monaco to Saint-Tropez is within a day’s cruise — so the choice of yacht here has less to do with range than with how you want to spend your time at anchor: a larger yacht means more space and a longer list of toys, a smaller one a more intimate week. Some of what’s currently available:

At the top of the range, Samurai (60.3m, Alia), Luna (90m, Oceanco), Plan B (73m, HDW) and Alva (60m, Amels) show what the Riviera’s deep-water berths are built for: large crews, generous cabin layouts and the space to host as much as to cruise.

The 34- to 42-meter class is the heart of the Italian-built Riviera fleet. Moka (42.2m, Sanlorenzo), A+ (34m, Benetti), Emocean (38.2m, Rosetti) and Vauban (36.9m, Sanlorenzo) carry between ten and twelve guests, a size that keeps the week private while leaving room to entertain on board. Smaller motor yachts such as E3 (26m, Ferretti), Blue Eyes (29.4m, Princess) and Baccarat (29.6m, Amer) suit smaller groups who want the same crewed service at a more intimate scale.

For guests who would rather spend the day at anchor than underway, crewed catamarans such as Joy (23.8m, Lagoon), Reve Bleu (20.55m, Lagoon), Double Happiness (18m, Sunreef) and Black Raptor (18.3m, Sunreef) offer wide, open decks and direct access to the water from the stern — a natural fit for a day at anchor off Pampelonne or the Îles de Lérins.

At the larger end of the category, sailing yachts offer the coast at a different pace, under canvas and with a full crew, like Jasali II (52.9m, Perini Navi) and Black Swan (40.2m, Camper & Nicholsons).

No part of the Mediterranean has beach clubs like the Riviera, and most of them are best reached by water. Anchor off Pampelonne, the long beach south of Saint-Tropez, and the tender takes you straight to the sand — Club 55, Nikki Beach and the rest are a few minutes away, with no taxi queue and no parking. Closer to Cannes and Antibes, the coast is lined with smaller clubs, and the Îles de Lérins offer quieter lunch alternatives.

Our guide to a day at Club 55 by yacht shows how a single afternoon at Pampelonne works, and our roundup of the best beach clubs accessible by yacht covers the wider Mediterranean.

The Riviera’s calendar is the other reason guests choose a yacht here. The Cannes Film Festival and the Monaco Grand Prix in late spring, Cannes Lions in June, and the Monaco Yacht Show and Cannes Yachting Festival in September each turn the coast into something else for a week — and from your own deck, with the harbor lit around you, they look very different from a crowded quay.

They are also the hardest weeks to secure. Berths, helicopter slots and the yachts themselves are committed months ahead, so an event charter is planned the other way round from an ordinary one: dates first, then yacht, then berth. If one of these weeks is in your diary, the earlier we start, the more choice you keep.

On the French Riviera, the yacht is only half the booking: the berth, the transfers, and the calendar make up the other half, and they are won or lost months in advance. We handle all three together — proposing yachts with the crew and the berth already in mind, coordinating helicopter and road transfers to the quay, and planning around event weeks from the first conversation. From first inquiry to disembarkation, the same senior broker stays with you.