Lagoon 40

A 2024 boat, and the most recent of the smaller catamarans here. Twelve metres four of hull with six metres eighty-seven of beam: compact by the standards of this fleet, and still wide enough that four cabins and eight people fit without the interior turning into a corridor.

The helm is at the side and raised. That single decision changes the week more than any specification: the person steering stands within speaking distance of the cockpit instead of being sent up to a flybridge, so nobody is separated from the conversation for the length of a passage.

The same position also puts the sail controls, the view of the bow and the view of the jib in one place. It is the arrangement that lets two people handle her comfortably while six more do nothing at all, which is what most charter weeks actually look like.

Four double cabins and four bathrooms. One each, no shared door, no cabin that has to be argued over. Eight guests on twelve metres is a full boat, and the reason it works is that the private half of the accommodation is genuinely private.

Draught is a metre thirty. It is what lets her go in close on any of the four coasts she works from, and on a Mediterranean summer week the number of nights spent at anchor rather than tied to a quay is very largely decided by that one figure.

She is offered from four bases: Olbia in Sardinia, Capo d'Orlando and Portorosa in Sicily, and Salerno in Campania. The Maddalena, the Aeolian islands and the Amalfi Coast are three quite different weeks, and the boat is the same in all of them.

There is no permanent crew. She can be taken bareboat by anyone qualified, or with a skipper booked in advance, and at this size the skipper is a genuine addition rather than a formality: one person who knows the coast, and seven who do not have to.

Being a 2024 hull, her rig, her systems and her fit-out are new rather than inherited. On a boat that will run charter after charter all season, the age of the equipment is the most reliable thing anybody can tell you about the week ahead.