Two Hulls, More Sea

(Short Version – without registration)

The easiest way to understand the modern luxury catamaran is to look at the world's best resort villas. Premier villas are rarely designed as narrow multi-storey houses. When space permits, they are wide and horizontal. Living room, terrace, outdoor dining area and pool flow naturally into one another. Luxury hospitality brands such as Aman, Six Senses and Four Seasons have embraced this architecture because it creates something more valuable than square metres alone: connected lifestyle space. The modern catamaran follows exactly the same principle.

01The Single-Storey Villa of the Sea

A conventional superyacht creates much of its additional volume by becoming longer and taller. The catamaran creates space through beam. A Lagoon EIGHTY 2 or EIGHTY 3 is approximately 25 metres long but an extraordinary 11 metres wide. That changes everything. The swimming platform connects naturally with the aft cockpit. The cockpit flows into the salon. The main deck connects with the foredeck. Above everything is an enormous flybridge. Lunch can happen in the cockpit while children swim immediately behind the yacht. Dinner moves to the flybridge. Later, loose furniture can be rearranged and the same space becomes a lounge, reception area or dance floor. It works less like a ship and more like a waterfront villa. Except the pool is the Mediterranean.

02Compare Surface, Not Length

The EIGHTY 2 and EIGHTY 3 are essentially the same lifestyle platform, providing

roughly 400+ m² of guest-oriented lifestyle space.

That is clearly more than the 30.5-metre Sanlorenzo SX100 and broadly comparable with the lifestyle surface of the 34.2-metre SX112.

*Representative published test figures; actual consumption depends on loading, conditions and operating profile. We deliberately use Sanlorenzo as the comparison because we consider it one of the finest monohull builders in this class. The SX range itself is unusually successful at creating terraces, beach areas and indoor-outdoor connections. The same underlying architectural comparison applies to other premium monohulls from builders such as Benetti, Riva, AB Yachts and others.

03Half the Capital for Comparable Lifestyle Surface

The numbers reveal something extraordinary. A fully equipped EIGHTY 2 might represent approximately €8.0–8.5 million ex VAT. An EIGHTY 3 approximately €8.5–9.0 million. A comparable fully equipped SX112 is more realistically a €17–18 million proposition. The SX112 provides considerably greater speed, conventional superyacht architecture and a different prestige proposition. It is not the same product. But if the owner's principal objective is guest space, outdoor living, swimming, entertaining and connection with the sea, approximately 25 metres of catamaran can provide lifestyle surface comparable to a 34-metre monohull at roughly half the acquisition cost.

04Speed Matters Less Than It Appears

The monohull's strongest advantage is speed. But consider a normal charter day involving twenty nautical miles divided between two or three anchorages. At 20 knots, twenty miles takes one hour. At 10 knots, it takes two. Split the distance across three passages and the difference might be twenty or thirty minutes per leg. And the guests are not sitting in a transfer vehicle. They are having coffee, sunbathing, talking on the flybridge, fishing or having lunch prepared aboard a 400 m² private resort. On the sailing EIGHTY 2, the argument goes further. It is not dependent on wind. Without wind, its twin engines allow it to cruise comfortably at approximately 8–9 knots.

Wind is simply a bonus. When conditions are right, the sails go up, the engines stop and approximately the same normal cruising speed can be achieved naturally. Now the journey itself becomes an experience. Guests lie on the trampoline above the water. Dolphins can swim almost directly underneath them. Fishing lines go out. Lunch is prepared. The yacht moves silently toward the next bay. Nobody wants the passage to finish sooner.

05Sustainability Is Becoming Part of Luxury

This matters increasingly to modern charter guests. Younger affluent travellers increasingly consider sustainability part of the quality and image of a luxury product. A yacht consuming hundreds of litres of diesel per hour sends a different message from a large sailing catamaran moving silently under sail. Even the motor catamaran offers a compelling alternative: the EIGHTY 3 moves approximately 400+ m² of lifestyle space with only 1,160 hp of installed propulsion, compared with 3,200 hp for the SX100 and 4,000 hp for the SX112. Efficiency becomes both measurable and visible.

06APA Makes It Financially Visible Too

The charter guest ultimately pays variable operating costs through APA. Useful planning assumptions are:

Indicative Yacht type APA

Sailing catamaran~20%

Indicative Yacht type APA

Motor catamaran~25%

Large motor

~30%

monohull

APA is additional to the charter fee and applicable VAT. Individual yacht terms vary, but lower fuel consumption creates a structural advantage.

07And It Starts Below €50,000 per Week

The concept is not limited to €8–9 million yachts. The Lagoon SIXTY 5 brings much of the same architecture and Nauta-designed luxury philosophy into a 20.55-metre yacht with a remarkable 10-metre beam. It is particularly compelling for destinations such as Croatia and the Red Sea, where the yacht itself becomes the swimming palace, restaurant and watersports base. A high-quality SIXTY 5 can be chartered for just below €50,000 per week in many

periods, plus VAT and APA.

That opens the modern luxury-catamaran experience to a substantially larger market.

08A Different Definition of Luxury

The French Riviera and parts of Italy will continue to reward conventional superyachts. Speed, marina presence and prestige matter there. But Ibiza, Mallorca, Croatia and particularly the Red Sea reward another form of luxury: shallow anchorages; huge outdoor areas; swimming; watersports; nature; space; and direct connection with the sea. The question is therefore changing from:

How long is the yacht?

to:

How much lifestyle does it actually deliver?

Measured that way, two hulls increasingly make sense.

(Long Version – with registration only)

Two Hulls, More Sea

Why the Modern Catamaran Is Becoming the Smarter Luxury Yacht

For decades, the image of luxury yachting has been dominated by the monohull superyacht: long, imposing, powerful and progressively larger. Length itself became part of the statement. But the way owners and charter guests use yachts is changing. The important question is increasingly not how impressive a yacht looks from the quay, but how good life feels aboard. How much space can guests actually use? How much of it is outside?

How close are they to the water? Can everyone have lunch together in the cockpit and dinner on the flybridge? Can the yacht enter the small cala rather than anchoring outside it? Can it become the restaurant, beach club, watersports centre and party venue rather than simply transporting guests between them? How much fuel and machinery are required to create that experience? And what does the yacht communicate about its owner or charter guest? Asked this way, the modern luxury catamaran becomes a fundamentally different proposition. Sailing and motor catamarans combine enormous horizontal living space, stability, shallow draft, direct access to the sea and comparatively efficient propulsion. Builders such as Lagoon, Fountaine Pajot and Sunreef have simultaneously brought the design, materials and amenities associated with superyachts into the multihull category. The result is a different definition of luxury:

more surface, more ocean, less machinery.

1. The Best Villas Are Horizontal

The easiest way to understand the modern catamaran is through high-end residential architecture. The world's best resort villas are rarely conceived as narrow four-storey houses. When land and budget allow, premium architecture generally moves in the opposite direction. The building becomes wide, horizontal and integrated with its surroundings.

The living room opens onto the terrace. The terrace becomes the outdoor dining room. The outdoor dining room flows toward the pool. Beyond the pool is the garden, beach, desert or ocean. The distinction between indoor and outdoor living becomes deliberately blurred. This principle is visible across premier villas offered by luxury hospitality brands such as Aman, Six Senses and Four Seasons. The architecture recognizes a simple principle:

horizontal, connected space feels luxurious.

A 500 m² single-storey villa with enormous glass openings, terraces and a pool immediately outside the living room generally creates a fundamentally different lifestyle from a 500 m² house distributed across four or five floors. The square metres may theoretically be identical. The experience is not.

2. The Catamaran Is the Single-Storey Villa of the Sea

Exactly the same principle applies to yachts. As conventional superyachts become larger, they inevitably become taller. Space is distributed vertically. The beach club is low. The main salon sits above it. Another social area is above that. The sun deck is higher again. The result can be spectacular, but increasingly resembles a luxury high-rise. The sea is something viewed from different floors. A catamaran creates space differently. Its extraordinary beam allows the yacht to expand horizontally. The main lifestyle sequence becomes:

swimming platform → cockpit → salon → forward terrace.

Much of it exists on essentially one continuous plane. Above it sits one major additional outdoor environment: the flybridge. The architecture resembles a premier resort villa far more than a conventional ship. And the swimming pool surrounding it has no edge.

3. Lunch Beside the Pool - Except the Pool Is the Mediterranean

Consider a typical day. Lunch is served in the aft cockpit. Children are swimming immediately behind the yacht. Someone returns on a Seabob. Another guest paddles back to the boat. Someone walks up from the swimming platform and sits at the table. Nobody needs to move between several decks. The cockpit is the shaded pool terrace. The salon is the living room. The aft platform is the pool deck. And the Mediterranean is the swimming pool.

In the evening, everyone moves upstairs. Dinner is served on the flybridge. After dinner, the furniture can be rearranged. Music becomes louder. The dining environment becomes a lounge or dance floor. This is not merely more space. It is connected space.

4. Compare Square Metres, Not Metres

Length overall is therefore an increasingly poor measure of lifestyle. Nobody experiences "25 metres" during a charter. Guests experience square metres. And importantly, outside square metres should count alongside inside square metres. In Ibiza, Mallorca, Croatia or the Red Sea, a square metre of shaded cockpit or flybridge may have greater lifestyle value than another square metre of enclosed interior. This changes the comparison dramatically.

Four Different Luxury Platforms

*Lagoon publishes 8,500 litres of fuel and autonomy of up to 3,500 nautical miles for the EIGHTY 3 rather than a directly comparable litres-per-hour cruise curve. The manufacturers do not all calculate and publish surface area on an identical basis, so false precision should be avoided. But the architectural conclusion is clear.

The EIGHTY 3 is clearly superior to the SX100 in usable lifestyle surface.

And the EIGHTY 2 provides essentially the same lifestyle surface as the EIGHTY 3. To reach a genuinely comparable guest-oriented lifestyle footprint in a monohull, the comparison moves toward the substantially larger 34-metre SX112 class.

That is remarkable:

approximately 25 metres of catamaran can provide the lifestyle surface of approximately 34 metres of high-volume monohull superyacht.

5. Why Sanlorenzo Is the Benchmark

This comparison is not intended as criticism of Sanlorenzo. Quite the opposite. We love Sanlorenzo and regard it as one of the finest monohull builders in the comparable class. The SX range is particularly relevant because Sanlorenzo itself has challenged conventional yacht architecture by creating large beach areas, terraces and stronger indoor-outdoor connections. That makes it an unusually demanding benchmark.

The comparison would apply more broadly to other premium monohulls from builders such as Benetti, Riva, AB Yachts and others. Every brand has its own philosophy. Some prioritize speed. Others volume, customization, range or prestige. But the underlying physics remain. A monohull creates additional lifestyle space primarily through length and additional decks. A catamaran creates it through beam.

6. Half the Capital for Comparable Lifestyle Surface

This has a profound effect on acquisition economics. Base prices are not particularly useful for this comparison because yachts in this category are rarely delivered at base specification. A serious charter-ready yacht requires substantial options, upgraded interior materials, navigation and communications equipment, AV/IT, exterior furniture, toys, tender equipment, commercial requirements and commissioning. A more useful planning comparison is therefore:

Fully equipped, charter-ready, ex Planning VATrange

Lagoon EIGHTY 2€8.0–8.5m

Lagoon EIGHTY 3€8.5–9.0m

Sanlorenzo SX100€12.5–13.5m

Fully equipped, charter-ready, ex Planning VATrange

Sanlorenzo SX112€17.0–18.0m

The implication is significant. The EIGHTY platform can provide broadly SX112-class lifestyle surface for approximately half the acquisition price. The SX112 is a different product. It provides much greater speed, conventional superyacht architecture, greater mass and a different prestige proposition. But for an owner primarily purchasing:

space + outdoor living + swimming + entertainment + connection with the sea,

the capital efficiency of the catamaran is extraordinary. The comparison with the SX100 is perhaps even more interesting. A charter-ready SX100 may cost approximately €4–5 million more than an EIGHTY 3 while providing less lifestyle surface. What the additional capital primarily buys is higher speed, conventional superyacht architecture and Sanlorenzo prestige.

7. Why Catamarans Can Do This

The answer begins with physics. A sailing monohull needs substantial righting moment to resist the force generated by its sails. Traditionally, much of that stability comes from a heavy keel and ballast positioned beneath the hull. A catamaran obtains much of its stability through geometry. The two hulls are positioned far apart. The enormous beam provides righting moment without requiring the same heavy ballast keel. The architecture can therefore create huge horizontal surface without the displacement expected from a similarly spacious monohull. The EIGHTY 3 has a published light displacement of approximately 68.5 tonnes. An SX100 reaches approximately 134 tonnes full load. Less mass requires less propulsion. Smaller propulsion means less machinery. Less machinery means less fuel. Less fuel itself means less weight. The efficiency compounds.

8. Same Villa, Different Powertrain

The EIGHTY 2 and EIGHTY 3 are best understood as two propulsion interpretations of essentially the same lifestyle concept.

Length~25 m~24.4 m

Beam11 m11 m

Lifestyle surface~400+ m²~400+ m²

Lifestyle conceptEssentially identicalEssentially identical

Engines2 × 230 hp2 × 580 hp

Normal passage~8–9 kn~10–12 kn

Reliable without

YesYes

wind

SailingYesNo

Sailing + efficiency + Motor efficiency + Core proposition experiencepredictability

This corrects one persistent misconception.

A sailing catamaran is not wind dependent.

The EIGHTY 2 has two engines. If there is no useful wind, the captain starts them and cruises comfortably at approximately eight or nine knots. The itinerary continues normally. Wind is not a requirement.

Wind is a bonus.

When conditions are right, the sails go up, the engines switch off and approximately the same normal passage speed can be achieved naturally. The logistics barely change.

The experience changes completely.

9. With Sails Up, the Journey Becomes the Event

Now the yacht becomes quiet. Propulsion vibration disappears. Guests hear the water. Someone puts fishing lines behind the yacht. Others lie on the foredeck.

Lunch is prepared. Children watch for dolphins and turtles. There is no reason to wish the passage were shorter. This produces an important distinction:

A fast motor yacht reduces travelling time. A sailing catamaran can eliminate the perception of travelling time.

The journey becomes one of the principal activities of the day.

10. Almost Close Enough to Touch the Dolphins

The forward trampoline illustrates this better than almost anything else. Guests can lie on the nets between the hulls only a short distance above the moving water. When dolphins join the yacht, they can ride the bow wave immediately underneath and ahead of the guests. On a conventional superyacht, guests may look several metres downward from a rail. On the catamaran, they are almost directly above the animals. They can feel nearly close enough to touch. For children, this can easily become more memorable than any marble bathroom or designer interior. The architecture places the guest where the experience occurs.

11. How Much Does 20-Knot Cruising Really Matter?

Speed remains the monohull's strongest operational advantage. An SX100 can cruise at approximately 20 knots. An EIGHTY 3 might normally travel at 10–12 knots. An EIGHTY 2 might travel at 8–9 knots. But consider a normal charter day covering twenty nautical miles.

Time for 20 Yacht / modeSpeed nm

EIGHTY 2 – ~8–9 kn~2h15–2h30 engine

EIGHTY 2 – sail*~8–9 kn~2h15–2h30

Time for 20 Yacht / modeSpeed nm

~10–12 EIGHTY 3~1h40–2h kn

SX112 economical~12 kn~1h40

SX100/SX112 fast~20 kn~1h

*In suitable wind. The raw difference is obvious. But normal luxury cruising rarely involves a continuous twenty-mile transfer.

12. Two Bays per Day Changes Everything

Consider a realistic day:

Tim Experience e

08:0 Breakfast at anchor

10:0 7 nm to first cala

11:0 Swimming and watersports

13:0 Lunch in cockpit

15:3 8 nm to second anchorage

16:3Swimming, beach, 0Seabobs

19:0 5 nm sunset repositioning

20:0 Cocktails

21:0 Dinner on flybridge

23:0 Lounge, music or DJ

The yacht has travelled twenty nautical miles. But nobody experienced a twenty-mile journey.

A seven-mile passage takes approximately 21 minutes at 20 knots and approximately 47 minutes at nine knots. The difference is only 26 minutes. And those additional 26 minutes are spent aboard a private floating resort. Nobody is waiting to arrive at the holiday.

They are already on holiday.

13. Fuel Changes the Equation

The speed advantage comes with substantial energy consumption. Representative published SX100 data indicate approximately 500 litres per hour at 20 knots. Twenty nautical miles therefore means approximately:

1 hour × 500 L/h = 500 litres.

Representative SX112 test data show the importance of speed particularly clearly:

SX112 operating Approx. pointconsumption

~12 knots~167 L/h

~16 knots~344 L/h

~20 knots~614 L/h

At 12 knots, twenty miles takes approximately 1 hour 40 minutes and consumes around 280 litres under those test conditions. At 20 knots, it takes one hour and consumes approximately 614 litres. The owner saves around forty minutes. The yacht burns more than twice as much fuel. This is the trade-off.

14. The Machinery Tells the Story

Look at the installed propulsion required by the four platforms:

EIGHTY EIGHTY SX100SX112

Total installed 3,200

460 hp1,160 hp4,000 hp

powerhp

~400+ ~400+ Broadly Lifestyle surfaceLower m²m²comparable

EIGHTY EIGHTY SX100SX112

Fast 20-kn cruiseNoNoYesYes

SailingYesNoNoNo

The SX112 uses almost nine times the installed main-engine power of the EIGHTY 2. Again, it buys real capability with that machinery. But if the principal mission is visiting two beautiful bays during a summer day, it is legitimate to ask how much that capability is worth.

15. Comfort Is More Than Speed

It would be incorrect to claim that catamarans are universally more comfortable. A sophisticated Sanlorenzo with modern stabilisation is exceptionally comfortable. Heavy monohulls can also have advantages in certain short head seas. Catamarans can pitch and can experience bridge-deck impact in unfavorable conditions. But charter routes are normally planned intelligently around weather.

Large Large motor Condition catamaranmonohull

Extremely

At anchorStabilisation important

stable

Moderate following seaExcellentExcellent

Reaching/downwind ExceptionalN/A sailing

Short head seaCan pitchHeavy hull can benefit

High-speed passageNot its missionSuperior

Noise under sailAlmost silentN/A

Water-level connectionExceptionalMore elevated

Ten knots under sail can therefore be a substantially more enjoyable experience than twenty knots under engine.

16. From Yacht to Private Beach Club

The architecture also transforms entertaining. The EIGHTY 2's flybridge exceeds 50 m².

Flexible and loose-furniture concepts allow areas to change function during the day. The flybridge can be a sun lounge at 15:00. A dining room at 20:00. A cocktail lounge at 22:00. And a DJ venue and dance floor at midnight. Meanwhile, the cockpit can function as a second bar and lounge. For receptions, corporate events and hotel partnerships, guests can circulate through genuinely large social environments. The yacht becomes:

villa + restaurant + beach club + bar + dance floor + watersports centre.

17. Create Your Own Swimming Environment

Shallow draft adds another dimension.

Where regulations, seabed and conditions permit, the yacht can anchor close to shore and use stern lines to control its position. Appropriate floating markers can delineate a swimming and watersports area behind the yacht, subject to local navigation rules. The environment becomes:

shore → swimming area → platform → cockpit → salon → flybridge.

It is the same architectural relationship as:

garden → pool → terrace → living room

in a premier resort villa. The difference is that the landscape changes every day.

18. Sustainability Is Becoming Part of Luxury

Modern luxury consumers increasingly care about the environmental impact of travel. This is particularly relevant among younger affluent travellers. Research by Booking.com has found strong stated intentions among Gen Z and Millennials to travel more sustainably, while also showing that intention and actual behaviour do not always perfectly align. For yachting, however, measurable consumption is only part of the issue.

Image matters too.

Consider two photographs. One shows a motor yacht travelling at twenty knots with four large diesel engines operating.

The other shows an 82-foot catamaran sailing past Ibiza with the engines switched off. Both represent substantial wealth. But they communicate different ideas. The sailing yacht communicates:

nature; freedom; technology; efficiency; exploration; participation.

For younger entrepreneurs, technology executives, creatives and families, this can increasingly represent the more attractive version of luxury. It is not less luxurious. It is luxury expressed differently.

19. Even the Motor Catamaran Benefits

The sustainability argument is strongest under sail, but it does not disappear with the motor catamaran. An EIGHTY 3 uses only 1,160 hp of installed propulsion to move approximately 400+ m² of lifestyle platform. The SX100 uses 3,200 hp. The SX112 uses 4,000 hp. The motor catamaran therefore offers a middle ground:

superyacht-scale lifestyle surface with dramatically less machinery.

20. APA Makes Efficiency Visible to the Guest

The charterer ultimately pays variable operating expenses through APA. Useful planning assumptions are:

Indicative On €85,000 Yacht type APAcharter

Sailing ~20%€17,000 catamaran

Motor catamaran~25%€21,250

Motor ~30%€25,500 superyacht

These are planning assumptions rather than universal contractual standards. APA also covers much more than fuel, including food, drinks, berthing and other variable expenses. Nevertheless, propulsion efficiency affects the budget. And APA comes on top of the base charter rate, together with applicable VAT. Fuel efficiency therefore matters both environmentally and financially.

21. The SIXTY 5 Brings the Concept Below €50,000 per Week

The concept does not begin with an €8 million yacht. The Lagoon SIXTY 5 brings much of the same design philosophy into a substantially more accessible category. At 20.55 metres long, it is an extraordinary 10 metres wide.

Lagoon publishes approximately 90 m² of interior living space and 87 m² of exterior living area. It shares the same fundamental ingredients: Nauta-designed interiors; huge beam; panoramic salon; substantial flybridge; large exterior areas; sailing capability; and indoor-outdoor continuity.

Lagoon SIXTY 5

Length20.55 m

Beam10.0 m

Draft~1.6 m

Interior living area~90 m²

Exterior living area~87 m²

Published combined living

~177 m²

area

Enginesup to 2 × 195 hp

Sail area~270+ m²

typically just below €50,000 in many

Luxury weekly charter

periods

Lagoon SIXTY 5

Additional costsVAT + APA

For a family or group spending around €50,000 per week plus VAT and APA, this already provides a remarkably complete luxury-yacht experience. That makes the SIXTY 5 particularly interesting commercially. The same basic lifestyle that becomes extraordinary on the EIGHTY platform is available at a much more achievable budget.

22. Ibiza and Mallorca: Where Bigger Cats Excel

The Balearics are almost purpose-built for this concept. Ibiza combines sophisticated hospitality and nightlife with small calas, shallow turquoise water and Formentera. A large catamaran can become its own private beach club. Lunch in the cockpit. Swimming. Formentera. Sunset. Dinner upstairs. DJ. Overnight at anchor. The EIGHTY 3's approximately 1.27-metre draft is particularly remarkable for a yacht offering this much space. Where seabed, weather and regulation permit, this opens anchoring opportunities that a much larger monohull cannot realistically use in the same way. Mallorca adds excellent aviation access, restaurants, marinas, maintenance facilities and longer cruising itineraries. For larger catamarans, the Balearics combine luxury infrastructure with geography that rewards the architecture.

23. Croatia: The Swimming Palace

Croatia offers a different proposition. There is less emphasis on luxury shopping and high-end nightlife. The attraction is nature. Hundreds of islands, sheltered bays, villages and short cruising distances make Croatia almost structurally designed for catamarans. Here the yacht becomes a swimming palace.

It is the accommodation. The restaurant. The beach club. The watersports centre. The social venue. The surrounding landscape provides the spectacle. That makes smaller 50- to 65-foot catamarans particularly compelling. The SIXTY 5 does not need Monaco outside the window. The secluded Croatian anchorage is the event.

24. The Red Sea May Be an Even Better Match

The Red Sea intensifies these advantages.

Reefs, islands, clear water, diving, shallow anchorages and vast stretches of undeveloped coastline reward yachts designed around interaction with nature. The northern Red Sea also experiences persistent northerly and northwesterly winds during significant periods. This can make north-to-south itineraries particularly attractive for sailing catamarans. With favourable wind, the yacht sails south. It remains relatively level. The engines stop. Guests continue eating, relaxing and enjoying the yacht. The wind is not required. If it disappears, the engines start. But when it is available, it becomes an experience multiplier.

25. The Red Sea Also Rewards Smaller Catamarans

The destination itself provides much of the luxury. That makes a 55- to 65-foot catamaran unusually compelling. Add professional crew, a chef, dive equipment, a compressor, Seabobs, eFoils, paddleboards and a proper beach setup, and the yacht becomes a private expedition base. The guest does not need 40 metres of monohull to feel that something extraordinary is happening. The reef outside the window provides the spectacle.

This creates opportunities across a much broader charter-price range.

26. One-Way Charter Makes the Journey Better

The Red Sea also lends itself naturally to one-way itineraries. Guests embark farther north. They progressively travel south through resorts, reefs and islands. They disembark elsewhere. The professional crew subsequently repositions the yacht. The guests therefore do not waste valuable charter days retracing their route. For sailing catamarans, favourable northerly winds can reinforce the attractiveness of the southbound itinerary. The yacht becomes an expedition platform rather than a circular holiday rental.

27. Where the Monohull Still Wins

There are missions where the conventional superyacht remains exceptionally strong. The French Riviera and parts of Italy are obvious examples. Monaco, Cannes, Saint-Tropez and Porto Cervo are heavily influenced by conventional superyacht culture. Marina presence matters. Speed matters. Brand recognition matters. Length can matter. And conventional berths often favour narrower monohulls over extremely wide catamarans. A Sanlorenzo, Benetti, Riva or AB Yacht therefore remains an exceptionally compelling product in this environment. The point is not that the catamaran is universally better. It is that the catamaran's advantages become strongest when the primary purpose of

the yacht is living with the sea rather than being seen in the marina.

28. Sailing Versus Motor Catamaran

Within the catamaran category, the choice is largely about personality and operating preference.

Sailing catamaranMotor catamaran

Reliable itinerary

YesYes

Sailing catamaranMotor catamaran

Wind dependencyNone for itineraryNone

Wind benefitMajor experience bonusN/A

PropulsionSail and/or engineEngine

~10–15 kn depending Normal cruising~8–10 kn model

Low relative to

Lowest, potentially near zero

Fuel usecomparable-volume

propulsion fuel under sail

monohull

PassageCan become the day's activityEfficient transport

Operational More sailing systemsSimpler simplicity

Sustainability imageExceptionalStrong

Guests who enjoy journey + Guests prioritising Best suited to destinationpredictability + space

The sailing yacht does not require wind. It simply has another propulsion system available when nature provides it. That is an important distinction.

29. Lagoon, Fountaine Pajot and Sunreef

The luxury-catamaran category itself has changed substantially. Fountaine Pajot has progressively moved its larger models toward sophisticated yacht-level interiors and equipment. Sunreef offers an unusually bespoke approach, allowing owners extensive freedom over layouts, materials and equipment. That is extremely attractive for private owners.

But unlimited customization can also result in yachts optimized around one particular owner's habits rather than repeated groups of charter guests. Commercial charter rewards different priorities: crew circulation; storage; galley positioning; service routes; flexible furniture; guest flow; and large common spaces.

Lagoon is particularly interesting because it combines increasingly sophisticated design with decades of experience producing functional charter-friendly platforms.

30. Lagoon Has Moved Into Superyacht Design

The EIGHTY 2 illustrates how far the category has evolved. Naval architecture is by VPLP Design. Exterior design combines VPLP Design and Patrick Le Quément. The interior is by Nauta Design. The result is not a conventional charter catamaran enlarged to 82 feet. It is a luxury yacht conceived around the fundamental advantages of the catamaran platform. The same philosophy appears further down the range in the SIXTY 5. This is important commercially.

Luxury-catamaran buyers no longer necessarily have to choose between efficient multihull architecture and sophisticated yacht design. Increasingly, they can have both.

31. The Charter Guest Understands the Product Immediately

Perhaps the greatest commercial advantage is that none of this requires a technical explanation to the guest. People immediately understand: a huge cockpit; a massive flybridge; stability at anchor; lunch beside the water; children swimming behind the yacht; dinner under the stars; a DJ setup; a secluded cala; and dolphins underneath the bow nets. These are intuitive benefits. The yacht feels enormous without necessarily feeling formal. For families and groups of friends, that can be precisely the desired atmosphere. The yacht becomes the social centre of the holiday.

32. The Business Case Is the Combination

No single advantage explains the catamaran proposition. The strength comes from combining them.

FactorCatamaran proposition

AcquisitionLower cost relative to lifestyle surface

PropulsionMuch smaller engines

Substantially lower; potentially near-zero propulsion under

Fuel

sail

MaintenanceLess main-engine machinery

Guest surfaceExceptional per metre LOA

Outdoor spaceExceptional

StabilityExcellent at anchor

DraftShallow-water advantage

Charter appealStrong family/group product

EventsExcellent reception platform

APAPotentially lower variable budget

SustainabilityStronger contemporary image

Owner High lifestyle utility per invested euro enjoyment

A yacht remains a depreciating luxury asset. Crew, maintenance, insurance, management, repairs, financing and refits remain substantial. But the catamaran can fundamentally improve the relationship between:

capital invested + operating cost + charter revenue + owner use + actual enjoyment.

33. A Different Definition of Performance

The conventional yacht industry has historically measured performance through: length; gross tonnage; horsepower; and speed.

A modern leisure customer might measure it differently. How many square metres can guests actually use? How many are outside? How close are they to the sea? Can everyone eat together? Can lunch happen beside the water? Can dinner happen upstairs under the stars? Can the yacht host a reception? Can a DJ turn the flybridge into a dance floor? Can it anchor inside the cala? Can children swim directly behind the cockpit? Can guests lie on the bow net while dolphins swim underneath them? How much fuel does it require to visit two bays?

Can the engines be switched off entirely? And how much capital is required to create all of this? Measured that way, speed becomes only one performance metric among many.

34. The Better Question

For some buyers, the conventional monohull superyacht will always be the right answer. It provides speed, prestige, marina presence and a particular aesthetic that a catamaran is not trying to reproduce. But the more interesting question is:

What do I actually want to do with my yacht?

If the answer is swimming, diving, exploring islands, entertaining friends, spending long days outside, anchoring close to beaches, having lunch beside the water, dining under the stars and living as close as possible to the sea, the logic increasingly points toward two hulls. The Lagoon EIGHTY 2 and EIGHTY 3 demonstrate the extreme version of this proposition. For approximately €8–9 million fully equipped and charter ready before VAT, they provide roughly 400+ m² of lifestyle surface. The EIGHTY 3 clearly exceeds the 30.5-metre SX100 in usable lifestyle surface. To reach broadly comparable lifestyle surface in a monohull, the comparison moves toward the approximately 34-metre SX112 - a yacht that may represent approximately €17–18 million fully equipped.

The Lagoon SIXTY 5 demonstrates that the philosophy also works at a much more accessible level, with luxury charter opportunities around €50,000 per week or

slightly below in many periods, plus VAT and APA.

And the sailing EIGHTY 2 adds one final dimension. It leaves the anchorage under engine at eight or nine knots whether there is useful wind or not. Then the wind arrives. The sails fill. The engines stop. The itinerary remains unchanged. But the experience changes completely. The children move to the nets. Someone puts out a fishing line. Lunch continues in the cockpit.

Dolphins arrive beneath the bow. Nobody asks how much longer it will take to reach the next bay. Because, like the best Aman, Six Senses or Four Seasons villa, the architecture is not designed to separate the guest from the environment. It exists to connect them to it. The difference is that this villa moves. And its swimming pool is the sea.