Lagoon 50

Twelve berths on fourteen metres seventy-six is the densest accommodation in this part of the fleet, and it is deliberate. Six cabins across the two hulls, eight metres ten of beam to carry them, and a saloon left whole in the middle rather than divided into further rooms.

That saloon is glazed on every side and sits at deck level, so it reads as a covered part of the outside rather than a room below. In August it is where lunch happens when the sun is too hard on the cockpit, and it stays full of light until the evening.

Five bathrooms serve the six cabins. Say it plainly: one pair shares, the other five do not. Two families travelling together usually solve this without a conversation; a group of six couples should agree who takes that cabin before the passports are collected.

There are lounging areas at both ends of her. The flybridge takes the height and the view, the foredeck takes the breeze and the quiet, and the effect on a full boat is that twelve people are never obliged to be in the same place at the same time.

She comes without permanent crew. That makes her a bareboat for anyone qualified to handle her and a skippered boat for anyone who would rather not be: the skipper is arranged in advance, and the difference is who reads the forecast and chooses the anchorage.

She dates from 2019, which puts her in the generation of Lagoons that established this layout before the newer models refined it. What she gives up in the latest detailing she returns in a hull that has been sailed, sorted and understood over several seasons.

Draught is a metre and a half. On the Campanian coast, where the good anchorages are shallow and the harbours are small, that number decides how many nights you spend at anchor rather than tied up, and how clear the water is when you go in.

Salerno is the base, at the eastern end of the Amalfi Coast. Positano, Capri and the Cilento are all reachable in the first day, and the week starts on the coast itself instead of with a delivery trip to reach the beginning of it.