September on the French Riviera carries a particular kind of magic. Champagne glasses catch the light along the Croisette, music drifts across the water from anchored superyacht decks, and in the Vieux Port, gleaming vessels sit behind varnished passerelles, their polished steel fittings throwing back the blue of the Côte d'Azur sky. At Port Canto, sails snap in the breeze as visitors step aboard the newest multihulls. The Cannes Yachting Festival 2025 runs for six days where innovation and indulgence share the same waterfront, framed by one of the most recognisable settings on earth.
Now in its 48th edition, the festival has established itself as Europe's largest in-water boat show. From 9 to 14 September, more than 650 exhibitors will fill the docks, presenting upwards of 700 vessels ranging from compact tenders to superyachts stretching beyond 40 metres. The 2024 edition attracted close to 55,000 visitors, and organisers are anticipating even larger crowds this year.
The biggest names in luxury arrive with some of their boldest statements yet. Leading the charge is the Sunseeker 116 Yacht, a 35.2-metre vessel representing the largest yacht British builder Northrup & Johnson has ever launched. Its sheer volume and extended range place it squarely in the long-distance cruiser category, yet every line of the hull remains unmistakably Sunseeker in character.
Italian yards dominate the prestige end of the docks. Azimut is showing the Grande 38 Grande Trideck, a true flagship in every sense, alongside the Magellano 30, a 135-kg explorer purpose-built for extended blue-water passages. Sanlorenzo presents three distinctive models: the SL110A, with its striking asymmetric layout; the SD132, a semi-displacement cruiser; and the SX120, a crossover design that deliberately dissolves the boundary between superyacht and open beach house. Pershing, meanwhile, brings the GTX116, a performance sport yacht with a top speed exceeding 35 knots.
These are not simply boats. Each one amounts to a floating expression of design ambition, engineering philosophy, and the kind of lifestyle that treats both knots and caviar as equally valid measures of quality. Walking the docks at Cannes, visitors encounter sculptural silhouettes that are as much art as they are watercraft.
While the superyachts command the most immediate attention, the festival's Innovation Route is where the industry's future takes shape. More than 120 exhibitors participate in this dedicated programme, each rethinking some aspect of what boating can and should be. Hybrid and electric propulsion systems are no longer niche curiosities. Companies including e-Motion Hybrid and ePropulsion present solutions aimed squarely at cutting emissions without sacrificing range, while Seakeeper demonstrates the latest in vessel stabilisation and Sea.ai presents an artificial-intelligence safety platform designed to make time on the water both smoother and more secure.
Among the new boat launches, dayboats and chase boats are carving out an increasingly prominent presence. Salt Yachts, an Australian newcomer making its brand debut at Cannes, arrives with the A44, a luxury dayboat conceived by a superyacht captain who wanted genuine offshore capability married to Riviera-grade refinement. Built to Australia's stringent Commercial Vessel Standards, a rare distinction in this category, the A44 has already generated significant pre-launch demand.
On the sailing side, multihulls take centre stage at Port Canto. Seawind Catamarans, based in Sydney, presents its new 1170 and 1370 models, designs that place ergonomics, safety, and genuine sailing performance ahead of volume production. French yards with well-established followings, among them Lagoon, Outremer, and Nautitech, use the festival as their primary catwalk for the latest refinements in performance cruising.
For New Zealand and Australian readers, Cannes is far more than an extravagant European spectacle viewed from a distance. Home-grown brands hold their own against the best the world has to offer.
Riviera Australia is presenting several models, including the 395 SUV, the 4300 Sports Express, and the 46 Sports Motor Yacht. The yard's presence at Cannes speaks to an international hunger for boats that combine Southern Hemisphere pragmatism with a level of finish that stands up to any European rival.
Propspeed, the Kiwi company that pioneered foul-release coatings back in 1999, is showing its full expanded range, including Foulfree for transducers and Lightspeed for underwater lighting. The brand has become a default specification for many superyacht captains the world over, valued for its contribution to maintaining both performance and fuel efficiency over time.
Ronstan, another Australasian name with a long international pedigree, continues to supply deck hardware to some of the fastest and largest sailboats afloat. Its fittings will be visible not only in the exhibitor halls but aboard numerous yachts moored throughout the show.
Taken together, these brands make a compelling case for Southern Hemisphere ingenuity in an arena long dominated by European yards. The ideas clearly travel well.
The show's reach extends well beyond the water itself. The Palais des Festivals, a building the world usually associates with film-premiere red carpets, becomes a venue for the broader world of yachting lifestyle. Bespoke interiors, custom tenders, marine technology, art, and fashion fill its spaces, extending the conversation about boat ownership into the realm of personal identity and taste.
The two venues each bring their own character to the event. The Vieux Port carries centuries of Provençal maritime history in its stones, giving this part of the show a sense of tradition and place. Port Canto, in contrast, has evolved into the festival's dedicated sailing hub, with a separate berth area for motorboats under 13 metres. Strung along the length of the Croisette, the two sites together offer visitors a single sweep of waterfront that moves between heritage and the contemporary.
What the Cannes Yachting Festival ultimately reflects is the state of the industry at a particular moment. The tension between pure indulgence and genuine sustainability has never been more visible. Yards understand that glamour may attract buyers, but innovation is what keeps them coming back, and the mix of hybrid propulsion, efficient hull forms, and versatile design on show this year makes that calculation plain.
For Kiwis watching from the other side of the world, the festival is a useful reminder of how thoroughly global the boating world has become. From Propspeed coatings turning on superyacht propeller shafts to Riviera motor yachts riding at anchor in the Vieux Port, the Southern Hemisphere is present and accounted for alongside the great European builders. The glamour may belong to the Riviera, but the ideas, products, and technologies on display have a reach that extends all the way back to New Zealand marinas.
For six days each September, Cannes becomes the world's unofficial capital of yachting. Visitors will find vessels that push the limits of design, propulsion systems that point toward a cleaner future, and Australasian brands proving they belong at the top table. Built on champagne and chrome, certainly, but also on ambition and ideas, the festival stands as a vivid reminder of just how far the possibilities of boating extend, whether you call Auckland, Sydney, or Antibes home.
