THE MEDITERRANEAN RUN

The Mediterranean Run is the summer passage by water from St-Tropez east along the coast to Capri, for ten members aboard a yacht the Court charters for the high season: from the old port of St-Tropez to Monaco, Portofino and down the Italian coast to the Bay of Naples, putting in at a harbour each evening and ending under the Faraglioni.

It exists because the coast is best seen from the sea, and the harbours are best entered from it.

The Coast

St-Tropez was a fishing port and a garrison until the twentieth century; its yards built three-masters, and in 1637 its militia beat off the Spanish galleons, which the town still remembers each May. A film with Brigitte Bardot made it famous in the late 1950s. Its regatta, Les Voiles, began in 1981 as a wager between two yachts racing to a shoal called the Nioulargue, the nest of the sea, and lunch at Club 55.

Monaco’s port, Port Hercules, is named for the Greek colony and its god; Virgil called it the castled cliff by the sea. Portofino was the Romans’ port of the dolphin, and a fishing village until the 1950s. Amalfi was a maritime republic, trading across the Mediterranean from the ninth century, and its sea laws were used in ports across Christendom.

Capri was Augustus’s retreat, and Tiberius ruled the Empire from it for the last ten years of his life, from twelve villas. The three Faraglioni rise to more than a hundred metres from the sea off its southern shore; a blue lizard lives on the outermost and nowhere else. The Blue Grotto, known to Tiberius, was rediscovered in 1826 by a German poet and a painter taken there by a fisherman; one enters it lying flat in a rowing boat while the oarsman pulls in by a chain.

The Passage

Ten places, on one yacht with its captain and crew.

The party joins at St-Tropez and sails east, in short passages by day, mooring in a harbour each night and dining ashore.

The captain chooses the day’s run by the weather. In July the mistral can blow hard off Provence for a day or three, and on those days the yacht stays in port.

The passage ends at Capri, with a visit to the Blue Grotto at noon, when the light is best, and the last dinner at Marina Grande.

What Is Asked

Soft shoes aboard, and a small soft bag; there is no room for a suitcase.

The captain’s word is final at sea.

Swimming from the yacht only when the crew says so.

Members join for the whole passage or not at all.

The Places

Ten. It is as many as the yacht sleeps in comfort.

Members are written to in February, since July and August are the months most in demand.

The sum is stated in the invitation and covers the charter, the crew, the berths and the table aboard; dinners ashore are the Court’s.

The nearest airports to St-Tropez are the little one at La Môle, fifteen kilometres off, Toulon–Hyères, fifty-two, and Nice, ninety-five.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.