France's 1965 maritime decree created a category of pleasure craft under six meters and six horsepower that any adult may pilot without formal certification, transforming the Côte d'Azur from a domain of yacht clubs into an accessible cruising ground. Beaulieu-sur-Mer's sheltered port de plaisance, tucked between the limestone cliffs of Cap Ferrat and the red-tiled cascade of Villefranche-sur-Mer, became one of the Riviera's principal hubs for license-free boat rental. The harbor sits at the western edge of Baie des Fourmis, a crescent of crystalline water where Napoleon III once anchored his imperial flotilla and where Gustav Eiffel, James Gordon Bennett, and the Rothschild family maintained winter villas along the waterfront. Today, license-free boat hire from Beaulieu offers five to eight hours of self-directed exploration along twelve kilometers of protected coastline. The vessels—typically four-to-five-meter rigid inflatables or open-deck runabouts equipped with bimini canopies, swim ladders, and cooler storage—draw on engines capped at 6CV to comply with permis-free regulations. Operators stationed at the port de plaisance provide fifteen-minute briefings covering helm operation, navigation boundaries, anchorage etiquette, and the location of marine reserve zones where anchoring is prohibited. Rental windows span 08:30 to 20:00 daily, with departure slots released in half-hour intervals to prevent congestion at the harbor mouth. The standard half-day circuit traces the peninsula's eastern shore past Villa Kérylos—a 1908 reconstruction of a Delian villa—then rounds Pointe Saint-Hospice to reach the calanques beneath Cap Ferrat's lighthouse. Full-day itineraries extend west to Villefranche's sixteenth-century Citadelle and the submerged sculpture park off Anse de la Scaletta, or east past Èze-sur-Mer's pebble coves to the red cliffs of Cap d'Ail. Water depth along the route ranges from three meters in the bays to forty meters beyond the cape, with seabed visibility exceeding fifteen meters on calm mornings. July and August see moderate chop from午後 thermal winds; April through June and September through early October offer the calmest seas and fewest concurrent vessels. Fuel costs are embedded in the rental tariff, which begins at one hundred twenty euros for a four-hour window and scales to two hundred forty euros for eight hours, with refundable deposits ranging from three hundred to six hundred euros depending on hull value.