Cannes Yachting Festival 2026 — the 49th edition

The Cannes Yachting Festival 2026 runs from 8 to 13 September 2026 and is the 49th edition of the show. The organiser, RX France, expects more than 680 exhibitors and over 700 boats displayed afloat across two harbours: Vieux Port and Port Canto. It is the first big show of the season and the place where builders traditionally unveil the models for the year ahead.

Updated: 7 September 2026

Below is what can be confirmed in sources today: the figures for this edition, the split between the harbours, the list of announced premieres and the historical context of the yards and of the show itself. Variable details — ticket prices, exact opening hours, who is on which stand — should be checked directly with the organiser, as they can change during the week.

The 2026 edition in numbers

The organiser's materials and trade coverage differ in the details — which is normal, because some figures are published before the show and rounded. We give them with their source attached instead of averaging them out.

• Dates
  Tuesday to Sunday, 49th edition; the 2020 edition was cancelled because of the pandemic8–13 September 2026
• Exhibitors
  figure published by the organiser (RX France) on the show's website680+
• Boats in the water
  the organiser states 710+ in the 5–55 m range; Boat International's guide of 30 July 2026 refers to 700 boats from 5 to 50 mapprox. 700
• World premieres
  figure announced by Boat International on the basis of exhibitor entries150
• Expected visitors
  the organiser states 56,600 people; trade coverage rounds this to 56,000approx. 56,000

For comparison: in 2012, at the 35th edition, the show had 438 exhibitors and 45,155 visitors. Fourteen years on, the number of exhibitors has grown by half and attendance by roughly a quarter — the event has grown outwards, towards bigger boats and equipment, rather than towards bigger crowds.

Vieux Port and Port Canto — two different shows in one city

The split between the harbours is the key to planning a visit, because moving between them takes time. The organiser runs a sea shuttle every 15 minutes.

Vieux Port is the motor side, the “home of power”: motor boats from 12 to 50 metres, flybridges, open boats, trawlers and RIBs. The largest vessels have been moved to Quai Max Laubeuf. A separate Power Cat Village is set aside for power catamarans, while equipment and fittings are shown in the Palais des Festivals.

Port Canto is sail and lifestyle. It has a loop of roughly 2.5 km linking the zones: a sailing area with what the organiser calls the world's largest in-water fleet of sailing boats and 120 new models above 10 metres, the Power Boat Marina with 180 dayboats up to 12–13 metres, a brokerage area with more than 45 vessels over 25 metres, and a watersports equipment zone.

In practice this means that someone buying a boat up to 13 metres and someone buying a superyacht are walking around two different events. If you are coming with a specific budget, it is worth starting at the harbour that matches your class of boat and leaving the other one for the rest of the day.

The premieres people are talking about before the show

The loudest Polish premiere is the Sunreef ULTIMA 88. The Gdańsk yard is exhibiting in both harbours — stand PAN089 at Vieux Port shows the ULTIMA 88, 80 Sunreef Power and 100 Sunreef Power, while stand SAIL162 at Port Canto has the Sunreef 60, 70 and 80 sailing catamarans. According to the premiere round-up published by Megayacht News on 10 July 2026, the ULTIMA 88 is 26.8 metres long, about 9.1 metres wide (29 ft 10 in), reaches 26 knots and gets an Ocean Lounge with a toy garage. The yard itself gives no technical figures in its announcement — it describes the model as a flagship with automotive-inspired styling.

The Princess X90 is the world premiere of the British yard from Plymouth and the newest model in the X Class, the “super flybridge” line. The boat measures 26.8 metres (87 ft 10 in), has a Hybrid Progressive-Planing hull, a top speed of up to 28 knots and three en-suite cabins as standard, with the option of up to five. At the Cannes press conference in September 2025 Princess confirmed that five X90s had been sold before the premiere, and that the first was due at the Cannes and Genoa shows in 2026.

Galeon, the second Polish brand in the top tier, is showing five models at Vieux Port: the 620 Fly, 560 Fly, 480 Fly, 400 Fly and 430 EXP — as reported by the German magazine BOOTE on 17 August 2026. The star of the stand is the 620 Fly with an interior in the “Ocean” palette developed with the Hong Kong studio Insitu & Partners, and with the two features the yard is known for: Beach Mode and Terrace Mode, meaning fold-down bulwarks and balconies.

The Megayacht News round-up of superyacht premieres also included, among others:

• Amer 42 Explorer “Even Further”
  steel hull, ice class, Volvo Penta IPS propulsion, Eco mode41.45 m
• Columbus Atlantique 38M
  a multi-level beach area instead of separate compartmentalised leisure decks38 m
• Azimut Seadeck 9
  Volvo Penta IPS, beach area with a pool, 29 knots top speed25.6 m
• Sanlorenzo SHE
  built with bio-based resins and synthetic teak, with a profile echoing the 1960s25.5 m
• Nautor Swan Swan 80 “Elvi”
  a racing and cruising yacht with a fold-down bathing platform23.99 m
• Numarine 27XP
  explorer with 2,200 nautical miles of range at 8 knots and flexible interior layouts27 m

Innovation Route — electric leaves the niche, slowly

In 2026 the show is running its Innovation Route for the second time: a signposted path through Vieux Port and Port Canto leading visitors to the solutions judged most innovative and most sustainable. Entries were accepted until 17 July 2026, and awards are given in four categories — best navigation-improving equipment, best sustainable product, best innovative boat and best CSR initiative — plus a special jury prize. The results are announced at the exhibitors' cocktail reception on Tuesday 8 September.

Keep a sense of proportion: electric and hybrid propulsion is still less than 8% of the global recreational boat market. It is at the same time one of the main growth drivers named by the industry, so the route is a statement of direction rather than a description of the present. Previous editions singled out, among others, the MODX 70 catamaran (the first fully electric catamaran of its size), the hybrid superyacht Benetti B.YOND 37M, the VAAN R5 sailing yacht built from 95% recyclable aluminium, the autonomous solar-electric catamaran Millikan and the SEA.AI WATCHKEEPER system, which detects obstacles ahead using machine learning.

Another new fixture is the Best of Boats Awards ceremony, held in Cannes for the first time — on Wednesday 9 September at 18:00, with a jury representing 15 countries.

Where this year's premiere builders came from

A model launch is usually the end of a process lasting several years and a product of the company's history, not an idea from last quarter. The three brands with the most to show in Cannes this year are a good example.

Sunreef Yachts — 24 years from idea to flagship

Sunreef was founded in 2002 in Gdańsk; its founder and president is Francis Lapp. The yard explains the choice of city by its shipbuilding tradition and the availability of skilled people. Just a year after the start, in 2003, it launched the Sunreef 74 CHE — described by the company as the world's first oceangoing luxury catamaran with a flybridge. That was the moment when “catamaran” in this segment stopped meaning only a charter boat. Today the range covers sailing catamarans from the Sunreef 50 upwards, the Sunreef Power and Ultima motor lines and Explorer superyachts, and the yard has invested consistently for years in electric propulsion and on-board energy generation.

Galeon — from small boats near Gdańsk to fold-down bulwarks

Galeon has been in business since 1982. The timeline the yard itself publishes is a good illustration of how a brand is built in this industry:

• 1982
  the yard opens; smaller boats dominate the early rangeStart
• 1992
  first international partnership, with a French builder, and entry into European marketsExport
• 1996
  the 280 FLY and 380 FLY arrive with inboard enginesFlybridge
• 2003
  collaboration with British designer Tony CastroDesign
• 2006
  a larger yard opens in GdańskScale
• 2010
  debut of the flagship 780 FLYFlagship
• 2015
  the award-winning 500 FLY with fold-down bulwarks — a solution half the market later copiedBeach Mode
• 2019
  the 400 FLY brings Beach Mode down to a smaller class of boatSmaller class
• 2023
  the 560 FLY wins the World Yachts Trophy for Best Evolution — awarded in CannesAward
• 2025
  the 620 FLY introduces Terrace Mode — the model on show in Cannes this yearTerrace Mode

Princess Yachts — 61 years and five sites in Plymouth

Princess started in 1965 in Plymouth as Marine Projects (Plymouth) Ltd, founded by Brian Phillips, Cliff Viney and David King; the name Princess Yachts International plc was adopted in 2001. The ownership history is typical of large European yards: in 1981 the company was bought by the South African businessman Graham J. Beck, in June 2008 a 75% stake went to the L Capital 2 FCPR fund co-sponsored by LVMH and Groupe Arnault (from 2016 as L Catterton), and in February 2023 the owner became the American KPS Capital Partners. Production is spread across five sites in Plymouth totalling more than 1.1 million square feet, including South Yard, taken over from the Royal Navy in 2012. Employment has reached around 3,200 people.

The Polish thread: a country that builds 25,000 boats a year

The fact that two of the loudest premieres in Cannes come out of Gdańsk is no accident. According to the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (material dated 17 January 2025), Polish yards turn out around 25,000 yachts and boats a year, which makes Poland the European leader and second in the world in motor yachts with a hull length up to 12 metres. About a thousand companies and more than 50,000 people work in the industry, and 95% of production goes to export.

That structure explains two things at once. First, why Polish brands are strong precisely in mid-size motor boats — that is where the production volume and the experience are. Second, why the premieres happen in Cannes rather than in Poland: the customer is abroad, so the boat travels to where the customer has already arrived.

A short history of the show: from a local salon to the opening of the season

The show started in 1977 under the name Salon de la Navigation de Plaisance, soon changed to Festival International de la Plaisance de Cannes. The name Cannes Yachting Festival has been in use since 2014. From the beginning the event has drawn on what Cannes has in abundance: two deep-water harbours, hotel capacity and an international audience already on the Côte d'Azur.

The event is held every September and is the first big salon of the season, which has a practical consequence: Cannes sets the order of premieres for the rest of the year, ahead of Monaco, Genoa and Fort Lauderdale. The 2020 edition was cancelled because of the pandemic. The organiser today is RX France, a subsidiary of RX Global; the show remains tied to the French nautical industries federation.

How to use this if you are not going to Cannes

Show premieres are a useful reference point when buying second-hand. A model debuting today will reach the used market in three or four years, and the features presented as novelties (fold-down bulwarks, beach areas, hybrid propulsion) will by then be the standard older boats are measured against. If you are planning a purchase, it is worth following what the yards change between generations — it is often an answer to real complaints and service problems with the previous model.

Related material

• Builder and boatyard directories
• Builders of large vessels
• Market: buying and selling vessels
• Charter — planning a trip
• Boat & Yard guides

In brief

• Cannes Yachting Festival 2026: 8–13 September, 49th edition, two harbours
• More than 680 exhibitors, around 700 boats, 150 announced world premieres
• Polish premieres: Sunreef ULTIMA 88 and Galeon 620 Fly; British: Princess X90
• The Innovation Route highlights sustainable solutions for the second time; electric and hybrid propulsion is still below 8% of the market
• Vieux Port is motor boats and superyachts, Port Canto is sail, dayboats and brokerage

Sources

Accessed: 7 September 2026. Cannes Yachting Festival — organiser's website, Boat International, guide to the 2026 edition (30.07.2026), Megayacht News, superyacht premieres (10.07.2026), Sunreef Yachts — show announcement, Sunreef Yachts — about the yard, Galeon Yachts — history, BOOTE, Galeon's models in Cannes (17.08.2026), YachtBuyer, the Princess X90 announcement, Princess Yachts — company history, Marine Industry News, Innovation Route 2026, Cannes Yachting Festival — history of the editions, PAIH on the Polish boatbuilding industry (17.01.2025)