The European show season opens on September 8, when the Cannes Yachting Festival fills both of the city's ports for the 49th time. The headline numbers this year are records: BOATPro counts 101 confirmed yachts over 24 metres — up from 99 in 2025 — with 26 superyacht world premieres among them, and a brokerage fleet worth around $500 million tied up for sale. Across all sizes, the festival expects some 700 boats from 5 to 55 metres and about 150 world debuts of every calibre.
Here is what the week of September 8–13 looks like — and which debuts are worth walking the docks for.
The show in numbers
Boats from 5 to 55 metres in two ports
Superyacht world premieres (24 m+)
Yachts over 24 metres — a show record
Combined asking price of the brokerage fleet
Numbers from BOATPro and the festival's organisers. The wider premiere count — around 150 across all sizes — comes with the usual caveat: exhibitors are generous with the word "premiere," so we cross-checked the big ones below against multiple sources.
What's new this year
The festival has a new director: Constance Brément. Her first edition brings a new Power Cat Village in the Vieux Port — a dedicated dock for motor catamarans from 11 metres up, a segment growing too fast to keep spreading among the monohulls. The Innovation Route, a marked trail of electric, hybrid and otherwise forward-looking boats, returns for its second year. And tickets have gone online-only, so buy before you fly.
The geography is unchanged: the Vieux Port takes motor yachts from 12 to 50 metres and most of the big premieres, while Port Canto across the bay hosts the world's largest in-water sailing fleet — more than 120 models over 10 metres — plus 180 day boats and the brokerage lineup, with more than 45 yachts over 25 metres for sale. A sea shuttle links the two every 15 minutes.
The superyacht premieres
The flagships
The biggest reveal by length is the Sirena 118 — at 36 metres the largest yacht the Turkish builder has ever launched, a tri-deck that moves the brand firmly into superyacht territory. Right behind her comes the 38.8-metre ISA Yachts Viper 130 Fast Naan, launched in Ancona at the end of August: a 33-knot sport flagship making her world debut in Cannes before moving on to Monaco.
Columbus Yachts brings the 38-metre Atlantique 38M with a multi-level beach club, and Custom Line unveils the Navetta 35, a 34.5-metre displacement yacht of up to 270 GT.
The most unusual claim of the show belongs to Amer Yachts: the yard presents the 41.45-metre 42 Explorer as the world's first full-displacement steel yacht under 500 GT built to an Ice Class notation — an explorer pitch aimed at owners who read charts of both hemispheres.
The British and Italian heavyweights
Princess Yachts gives its X-class a new flagship: the X90, a 27.4-metre "super flybridge" that stretches the volume-first concept the X95 started. Pershing answers with the GTX90 — same length, different religion: a sport-utility yacht with an unusually large flybridge for the marque.
Azimut arrives with two premieres: the Seadeck 9, at 25.6 metres the largest yacht ever built at its Avigliana plant and the flagship of its low-emission Seadeck family, and the Magellano 27M, the new head of the trawler-inspired Magellano line. Riva shows the 96' Argo Super, an evolution of its flybridge range, while Sanlorenzo goes the other way entirely with SHE — a 25.5-metre yacht wrapped in 1960s retro aesthetics and built using bio-resins — plant-based binders in place of the usual synthetics.
The explorers
Alongside the Amer, two more expedition-flavoured debuts: Numarine premieres the 27XP, and Bering shows the Bering 88, a steel-hulled 26.8-metre explorer with a range beyond 5,000 miles.
Sails, cats and a tennis champion
Port Canto's sailing fleet is led by the new Swan 80 from Nautor Swan, a 24-metre all-rounder and one of the largest sailing debuts of the show. Dufour debuts the 39 at the accessible end of the range.
The multihull story is bigger. Sunreef premieres the Ultima 88, a near-27-metre performance catamaran whose first hull belongs to tennis champion Carlos Alcaraz — expect that dock to be crowded. Fountaine Pajot brings its first-ever flybridge catamaran, the FP55, alongside the sporty FPY 70S and the new FP48. Lagoon counters with the Lagoon 47. Add the new Power Cat Village and the solar-electric Pioneer PY60, part of the Innovation Route trail, and Cannes 2026 is quietly a catamaran show wearing a superyacht badge.
One more British note: Pearl presents the Pearl 73, fresh from its home-market debut.
If you are going
The festival runs Tuesday to Sunday, September 8–13, tickets online only. Start in the Vieux Port for the premieres, take the shuttle to Port Canto for sails, cats and brokerage — and leave a half-day margin: 700 boats do not fit into an afternoon.
For the yards, Cannes is the opening move of a two-act September: many of the boats above — the Viper 130 among them — sail straight on to the Monaco Yacht Show two weeks later. For buyers, that makes the Croisette the place to see the new fleet first.
Photo: Cannes Yachting Festival / RX. Source: BOATPro, BOAT International, Cannes Yachting Festival.
