Forty years of getting two hulls right.
Lagoon did not arrive at the cruising catamaran by way of a marketing study. It arrived by way of offshore racing — and four decades of iterating on what the last six thousand owners actually asked for.
Born in a racing workshop, 1984.
Lagoon began as part of Jeanneau Techniques Avancées — the advanced prototype shop behind Jeanneau’s offshore racing programme, where high-performance multihulls were designed and built to be pushed hard.
That is an unusual parentage for a brand now best known for comfortable family cruising, and it matters. The structural thinking, the hull forms and the obsession with stiffness all came out of boats built to survive being raced across oceans. The comfort came later, layered on top of engineering that was already sound.
When Beneteau acquired Jeanneau in the mid-1990s, Lagoon development moved to Construction Navale Bordeaux — a yard that brought advanced composite construction and the ability to build very large yachts. Lagoon has been part of Groupe Beneteau, the largest boatbuilding group in the world, ever since.
Four decades, in order.
- 1984 — The nameLagoon is founded inside Jeanneau Techniques Avancées, a workshop built around offshore racing prototypes and one-off high-tech builds.
- 1987–1996 — First generationThe 55, 47, 57 and 67 establish the cruising catamaran as a credible long-distance platform rather than a curiosity.
- 1995–1996 — BordeauxBeneteau acquires Jeanneau. Lagoon moves to Construction Navale Bordeaux, bringing advanced composite construction to the range.
- 1997–2003 — The volume eraThe 380, 410, 440, 470, 500 and 570 turn interior volume and liveability into the brand’s defining characteristic.
- 2004 — The 440The first catamaran with a gull-wing nacelle. It becomes one of the most-produced cruising catamarans in history and defines the look of a generation.
- 2006 — HybridLagoon launches the first cruising catamaran in the world fitted with hybrid diesel-electric propulsion.
- 2009 — The 620The large-yacht range finds its footing; the 620 becomes a class leader in its size bracket.
- 2010–2017 — Nauta and the Seventy seriesCollaboration with Nauta Design brings a new design language, the mast moved aft, and the SEVENTY range takes Lagoon into superyacht territory.
- Today — 6,000+ hullsFrom the 38 to the EIGHTY 3, with more than six thousand catamarans delivered and Lagoon established as the largest multihull builder in the world.
The same architects, from the beginning.
VPLP Design
Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot-Prévost have drawn Lagoon’s hulls since the start — the same office behind some of the fastest ocean-racing multihulls ever built. Forty years of owner feedback has gone back into those lines.
Nauta Design
The Milanese studio responsible for the modern Lagoon interior: light, low-glare, and laid out around how people actually move through a boat at anchor rather than how it photographs.
Patrick le Quément
The former head of Renault design brought an industrial-design discipline to the recent range — visible in the way glass, coachroof and topsides now resolve into a single line.
Two yards, one standard.
Hulls up to roughly fifty feet are built at Belleville-sur-Vie in the Vendée and launched at Les Sables-d’Olonne. The larger yachts come out of the CNB yard in Bordeaux, alongside Groupe Beneteau’s custom builds.
It is worth knowing this because it explains the engineering consistency across a range that spans 38 to 83 feet — and why the larger Lagoons feel like custom yachts rather than scaled-up production boats.
Six thousand catamarans is not a marketing number. It is six thousand rounds of feedback.
See what forty years of iteration feels like.
As the authorized Lagoon dealer for the USVI and BVI, we can get you aboard the current range and talk you through how it got here.