Getting on board with the Cannes party plans

THE champagne is on ice. The beer is in cold bottles. The party is under way. And the rich and famous are all on board the gleaming yacht for a party -- wearing house slippers?

Welcome to one of the guilty pleasures of the Cannes Film Festival: the boat parties.

Lined up like suckling piglets at the dock, the dozens of sleek, multimillion-dollar cabin cruisers and sailing vessels moored near the palais that plays host to the world’s most famous film festival each spring, are popular destinations for parties, deal-making, or, in the case of films, press interviews with the stars.

One recent evening brought together Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and the other stars of “Southland Tales,” a futuristic piece of eye candy and apocalyptic vision from writer-director Richard Kelly that was in competition at the festival.

Capt. Ed Featherstone of New Orleans and his crew of 10 oversee the private and charter yacht the Big Eagle, registered out of Kingstown, St. Vincent, in the Caribbean. The 172-foot, four-deck, oceangoing vessel, which spends summers plying the Mediterranean, is famous at Cannes as the Budweiser Boat because it was formerly owned by an executive of the Anheuser-Busch beer empire. He has since died, and the yacht is now owned by two oilmen from Corpus Christi, Texas.

Featherstone said the yacht, usually based in Miami, rents for about $100,000 per party. For each party certain precautions are taken. For instance, white wine, never red, is served guests because red can stain the carpets. And each guest is required to exchange his or her shoes for a pair of slippers before coming on board.

“That’s to protect the wood on the deck and the carpet inside,” the skipper said, explaining that the deck is made of teak. “The ladies come on with high heels and it’s kind of a soft wood, and every time they take a step it makes an indentation.”

So much for kicking back and just having fun.