Lagoon

A Renault engineer's workshop that became the world's largest catamaran builder

Lagoon started in 1984 as Jeanneau Techniques Avancees, the advanced-projects arm Jeanneau ran alongside its core monohull range, and its first job was proving that a cruising catamaran could be built and sold in series rather than one at a time. The division found a market fast: French sailors wanted the deck space and flat ride of a multihull without giving up the joinery and finish of a production cruiser, and Lagoon built its name on delivering exactly that, generation after generation, through the 1980s and 1990s. Jeanneau eventually passed the catamaran business to Construction Navale Bordeaux, and CNB was bought by Beneteau in the mid-1990s, the ownership structure that still stands today.

The scale that followed is the real story. Lagoon has built more than 7,000 catamarans since 1984, more than any other multihull builder anywhere, and it holds that position by a wide margin over French rivals such as Fountaine Pajot and Bali. Individual models did the heavy lifting: the Lagoon 440 alone ran to more than 400 hulls in the 45-foot class, and the 450 that followed it sold in the high hundreds before Lagoon replaced it with the 46. For a buyer that production history means something concrete: sisterships everywhere, a used market that actually trades, and a parts and service network sized for a fleet in the thousands rather than the dozens.

Two French yards for two very different sizes of boat

Lagoon builds in two places, split by length rather than by model line. Catamarans under 50 feet, which covers the 38 through the 47, are built at Beneteau's Belleville-sur-Vie plant in the Vendee and launched down the coast at Les Sables-d'Olonne, the same stretch of French Atlantic coast that produces a large share of the world's production sailboats. Anything over 50 feet, the 51 through the flagship Eighty 3 power catamaran, is built at the Construction Navale Bordeaux yard on the Garonne, the company's registered headquarters and the yard with the shed height and crane capacity a 60-foot-plus hull needs.

The split matters for how a Lagoon actually gets engineered. Every hull in the range, big or small, starts with naval architecture from VPLP, the Vannes-based design house behind America's Cup and Vendee Globe multihulls as well as most of the French catamaran industry, so the underwater shape carries real offshore pedigree even on a family cruiser. Exterior styling and interior design are commissioned separately and have varied by model and era: Patrick le Quement, formerly Renault's design director, drew the 42 and 46 generation's exterior, and studios including Nauta Design have handled interiors across the range. The result is a family look that still lets each model answer to its own size and market.

Built for the charter fleets that keep the whole industry running

No catamaran builder sits closer to the charter industry than Lagoon. The Moorings, Sunsail and Dream Yacht Charter, the three biggest bareboat and crewed operators in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, all run Lagoons in volume, and Lagoon builds several models with a charter-specific cabin layout, typically four to six cabins with private heads, sold alongside the owner's three-cabin version of the same hull. That relationship shapes the product: charter operators want simple systems, predictable maintenance and a boat that stands up to a different renter every week for years, and Lagoon's standardised, series-built construction is a direct answer to that brief.

It also shapes what a buyer can find out before ordering one. Because thousands of Lagoons spend their working lives in charter, the fleet throws off more real-world data than almost any rival: charter management returns, resale prices after a fixed management term, and a steady stream of former-charter boats reaching the private used market every year, usually at a discount to a boat that was privately owned throughout. An owner buying new rarely sees that data volunteered, but it exists, and it is one of the more useful things a Lagoon buyer can go and find before signing.

The range today, sail and power

The current sailing line runs from the Lagoon 38 up through the 42, 43, 46 Iconic, 47, 51 Iconic and 55 to the 60, with the smaller end aimed at first-time catamaran owners and charter fleets and the larger end built full custom in Bordeaux. Lagoon added a power catamaran range alongside it, the Sixty 5, Sixty 7, Seventy 7 and the flagship Eighty 3 and Eighty 2, aimed at owners who want catamaran volume and a flat ride without standing a mast, a segment now growing fast enough that Lagoon treats it as a second core business rather than a side line.

Model names change faster than most brands make obvious, which is worth knowing before comparing two Lagoons on price alone: the 46 profiled on this page was succeeded in the catalogue by the 46 Iconic, essentially the same hull with an updated equipment pack and styling refresh, while the 47 that followed is a genuinely new design rather than a renamed 46. Reading the hull number by itself is not enough to know what generation, or what price, a given Lagoon actually is.