Yacht do you want?

Wave goodbye to your concerns about cruising aboard a small ship in the South of France, says Imogen West-Knights, who investigates what life is like on a boat designed to rival luxury yacht charter without the price tag

As the ship sets sail out of the port of Nice and a lounge singer sang French standards on the deck under a billowing tricolore flag, a member of staff explained to me that their company, Ponant, does not talk about 'cruising'. It talks about 'travel'. We are not, this cruise company would have us believe, on a cruise. Ponant knows that 'cruise' can be a dirty word. It evokes gigantic, impersonal ships, tacky entertainment, hordes of tourists moving cattle-like through port towns, buffet plates and organised fun, places where guest numbers run into their thousands. Fine, if that is your bag, but that is not the bag of the people targeted by Le Ponant, the ship on which I am about to spend three days sailing around the South of France.

The idea is this sailing cruise ship, with a mere 16 state rooms and a crew to guest ratio of 1:1, is as close as you can get to experiencing a private luxury yacht charter without paying private-luxury-yacht-charter prices. A trip on Le Ponant doesn’t come cheap, but it does come considerably cheaper than chartering a ship such as this. I was on board to see what exists in the previously uncharted waters between cruise and private superyacht and whether it feels more like the former or the latter.