Forty years, two French yards, and more cruising catamarans launched than any other name on the water.
Signature Catamarans is an exclusive Lagoon dealer. We sell one builder’s boats, and this is the case for that builder — with the sources.
Lagoon was not a start-up. It began in 1984 as a project of Jeanneau Techniques Avancées — the yard’s advanced-technology workshop, the part of the business that built racing boats — and the first Lagoon was a 55 drawn by VPLP, then best known for offshore multihull racing.
That parentage still shows. Lagoon is a cruising brand built by people who came from the fast end of the sport, which is why the boats are laid out for living but drawn by an office that thinks about hulls.
Sources differ on whether the first 55 splashed in 1984 or 1987; the brand dates itself from 1984.
Lagoon does not use a single in-house design office. Every current model is a collaboration between the same three names — and the split of work is unusually clean.
Naval architecture — hulls, rig geometry, the numbers that decide how the boat behaves. Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot-Prévost drew the first Lagoon and are still on the drawings for the new 47.
Since 1984Exterior styling. Forty-two years in the car industry before this, latterly as Director of Industrial Design at Renault — which is why a Lagoon reads as one shape rather than a deckhouse dropped onto two hulls.
Exterior designInteriors. The Italian studio behind the light, low-contrast joinery and the sightlines that make a salon feel like a room with a view rather than a cabin with windows.
Interior designNot a network of licensed builders. Every Lagoon comes out of one of two French sites, and which one depends on the size of the boat.
The volume yard. The 38, 43, 46 Iconic and 47 are laid up here, then trucked to Les Sables-d’Olonne for rigging, sea trials and handover — which is where your boat will first float if you buy at the smaller end of the range.
Construction Navale Bordeaux, bought by Bénéteau in 1992, builds the 51, 60, SIXTY 5, SEVENTY 7 and EIGHTY 2. A superyacht yard with an 80-metre quay — which is the reason a boat the size of the EIGHTY 2 can be a series build at all.
We deliberately do not repeat the claim that Lagoon builds in Poland or Tunisia. We looked; every source points to these two French sites.
Bénéteau bought CNB in 1992 — its first acquisition — and Jeanneau in 1995. Lagoon has sat inside that group ever since.
The group reported around €849 million of revenue in its 2025 financial year, with roughly 6,400 employees, nine brands, sixteen production sites and more than 1,200 dealer points of sale worldwide.
Scale is not a virtue on its own. It matters here for three practical reasons: parts exist and keep existing, a surveyor in Newport already knows the hull, and the resale market has actual depth because there are actual buyers.
Lagoon turned forty in 2024 and marked it the only way that makes sense for a boat brand: not a party, a rendezvous. The Lagoon World Escapade, 17–19 May 2024 — thirty escapades around the world, more than 400 boats from across the range, 2,400 participants, all out sailing on the same weekend.
That is the part of the ownership that a spec sheet cannot show you, and the reason we push clients toward the fleet events on our own calendar.
See what’s on this seasonWins and nominations are listed separately, because they are not the same thing and most dealer sites blur them. Lagoon has a strong record in reader-voted awards and a mixed one in the editorially judged ones — you should know both.
Ask us which of these matter. In our experience the reader-voted awards tell you what owners think after a season; the judged ones tell you what a panel thought after a weekend. Both are useful, neither is the boat.
The Lagoon 440 is consistently credited as the first cruising catamaran under 45 feet to carry a flybridge. Every builder does it now. At the time it was an argument about whether a boat that size could carry the weight and windage — Lagoon decided it could, and the layout became the category standard.
The Lagoon 420 Hybrid put diesel-electric propulsion into a series-built cruising cat years before it was fashionable. Sources date it between 2006 and 2008. Twenty years on, the group is running an electric-propulsion joint venture and putting alternative drivetrains across the range.
You will read this a lot. It does not survive contact with the range. The mast has moved aft and forward again across generations — the 42 carried it notably far aft, the new 43 moved it forward onto the coachroof and, because the foretriangle shrank, dropped the self-tacking jib entirely in favour of a genoa. If a self-tacker matters to you, ask us model by model. It is not a brand-wide feature.
The Vendée sites at Belleville-sur-Vie and Poiré-sur-Vie hold ISO 9001, ISO 50001 and ISO 14001; Bordeaux was certified in 2023. Hulls are vacuum-infused, which uses less resin and puts less of it into the air of the shed.
Hemp-fibre reinforcement and bio-sourced resin are real and in production at group level — but Lagoon has not published which models carry them or from when. We are not going to tell you your boat is made of hemp until Lagoon tells us it is.
Group-wide, Bénéteau reports CO₂ emissions intensity down 26% since 2022 against a 30% target for 2030. That is a group figure, not a per-boat one, and we will not present it as one.
Lagoon lists five years on boats sold from 2019 onward, against structural and manufacturing defects — up from three before that. Work done by a dealer carries a further year on the repair itself. Confirm the current terms with us in writing before you sign.
The builder’s own owner community — rendezvous, technical notes and the people who have already solved whatever you are about to run into.
Across the whole global charter fleet, the Lagoon 42 takes more booked weeks than any other catamaran, with the Lagoon 46 second. If the boat has to earn, that is the number that matters.
Seven thousand hulls means a supply chain with a reason to keep stocking your pump. It is the least glamorous argument for a big builder and the one you will feel most.
Charter figure: Booking Manager, State of the Yacht Charter Industry 2025. We have left out the “Lagoon holds 26% of the charter fleet” and “18% of the catamaran market” claims that circulate online — both trace back to misreadings of reports that say nothing of the kind.
There are good multi-brand brokers. This is simply a different job.
One range, known in depth. Which layout survives a season with kids aboard, and which option you will regret skipping.
Build slots, option changes and delivery dates go straight to the yard — not through someone selling a different brand next week.
Commissioning, the first season, the first haul-out. Handover is where the work starts.
Specified before the hull is laid up — not retrofitted afterward.
Every figure on this page was checked against a primary source in August 2026. Where sources disagreed, we said so rather than picking the flattering one.
Start with a model, shape the layout and finishes, then send the specification to our team. No obligation — just a real starting point.
Add Signature to your home screen
The fleet and your saved specs, one tap away.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we would also use analytics and advertising cookies to understand how the site is used and to measure our advertising. You can change your mind at any time. Read our cookie policy.
