It was a spring afternoon and my sister Laura and I were chatting on the telephone, she in Michigan and I in Los Angeles. Days earlier, I’d accepted an invite from NAOS Yachts to tag along on a weekend getaway aboard a Lagoon catamaran to celebrate the manufacturer’s 40th anniversary. As an owner of a beloved Cape Dory 25, my regular sailing was about as far from a Lagoon as you can get, and I was curious to see what it was that drew such a massive global community to catamaran sailing.
“Did you get the video I sent?” I asked. I had the phone pinched between my ear and shoulder and was using every inch of the charger cord to reach across the kitchen and pack my weekend snack bag.
“My gawd,” Laura said after she’d watched the promo video. “These boats are amazing. Will you get your own kitchenette?”
I told Laura I didn’t know. Truth is, I’d received an itinerary but hadn’t read past the photos.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Laura said, sounding concerned. “What if you show up, and they shove a charcuterie board in your arms?”
“A charcuterie board?”
“Yes, David. What if you’re wait staff?”
Among her many qualities, my sister is an excellent phone-talker; she has a vivid imagination and has long been a cheerleader of my sailing adventures. As kids, we spent summers on a woodsy island in Northern Michigan where, when not painting our toes, braiding friendship bracelets, or throwing rocks in the lake, we spent countless hours floating around on a ramshackle 12-foot catamaran.
“Please tell me you’ve seen Below Deck,” she continued. “So much drama! Watch an episode before your trip. Just in case.”
Speaking of yacht drama, there’s been a long and spirited debate on the merits of monohulls versus catamarans. Monohull sailors accuse cat owners of being softies, the captains of floating condos that will beam reach but won’t point upwind. On the flipside, cat enthusiasts point out that a multihull can be fast, comfortable, and sail flat—and still be a sailboat. As for me, I don’t have a pony in the race. My Cape Dory 25 is good-looking but has 7 feet of beam, hunching headroom, and a below deck experience that’s approximately on par with tent camping.
“Will I ever own a catamaran? Probably not,” I told my sister. “Am I hoping the people at Lagoon will meet me, feel bad, and give me one? You bet.”
And so, my mission was clear: I would spend three days aboard a Lagoon 42, hobnob with cat owners, and dive toes-first into the multihull experience.
“Wait, you’re going sailing on a yacht?” my 10-year-old son asked when I’d hung up the phone. “You’re sleeping on it? Does it have a hot tub? Can I go?”
“Not this time,” I said, tossing sunscreen and a white button-down into my bag and zipping it up. “Daddy has catamaraning to do.”
Skies were gray and winds were wimpy when we pushed off and began the 31-mile trip from Marina Del Rey to Catalina Island. Gunnar Swanson of NAOS Yachts was my weekend captain. He’d brought our Lagoon 42, Catalina Breeze, up to 8 knots and was motoring us out onto Santa Monica Bay when I joined him at the helm.
“You’re good here?” he asked, stepping aside and offering me his spot in the captain’s chair. Gunnar went into the cabin and organized provisions. Meanwhile, I stood at the helm, studying an overwhelming assortment of levers, clutches, powered winches, and B&G displays, hoping there was a button that would deliver drinks.
“The boat’s so balanced,” I told Gunnar moments later when he returned. “It basically steers itself.”
Gunnar glanced down at the nav controls.
“Actually, I think the autopilot is on,” he said.
I took my hand off the wheel and squinted nautically into the distance.
“Ditto,” I said. “Was thinking the same.”
“The most beautiful dreams are the ones that last,” the Lagoon promo video says. Our motor-sail over to the island would span only a few hours, so I committed myself to soaking up the experience by sampling the many places one can recline on a boat with a 25-foot beam. I kicked back in the salon’s large L-shaped settee and sipped coffee. I climbed on the coachroof and leaned against the mast. On the bow, I struck a series of salty-looking poses in the port and starboard rail/seats.
“Did you buy a catamaran?” One of my Instagram followers DM’d after I’d posted a video of me with my hair blown back à la Kate Winslet in Titanic.
“Just doing research.” I wrote back.
“Noooooo,” wrote a pal who’s a devoted monohull sailor. “Stop thisssssss!”
“Can’t stop now,” I replied. But, after I spilled coffee on my pants and nearly dropped my phone overboard, I eventually did.
Halfway to Catalina, I was in the boat’s well-appointed galley nibbling on yogurt and granola when a pair of ships appeared on the horizon.
“Twelve hundred feet long with a 167-foot beam!” Gunnar said, taking a look at the AIS. I put down my bowl and walked over to the nav station. Out the window, the big ships looked like statues but were moving at 9 knots. On deck, containers were stacked nine high like Legos. Though I’d never been so comfortable at sea, nor on a sailboat so big, enjoying a parfait so perfect, I was suddenly aware of how tiny even a 42-footer could feel.
We stayed our course and passed between the ships, a pod of dolphins came and went, I had a third coffee, and soon our destination appeared. Emerald Bay is a picturesque cove on Catalina’s west end. Quiet, sun-parched beaches, hiking trails with huge vistas, and a well-maintained mooring field make it a sweet spot for boaters in busy So-Cal.
There were 10 other Lagoons on moorings when we arrived. Charly Devanneaux and his wife, Anne-Cécile, (my weekend hosts and owners of NAOS Yachts) were the first to greet us. Charly picked me up in his dinghy and brought me aboard Clapotis 2, their Lagoon 52. Together, we raised some flags on the gennaker halyard, toasted the weekend with white wine, and I told him about my Cape Dory 25 and its two yachtiest features: a gimbaled Jetboil and a Porta Potti.
“Cape Dory made a good sailboat,” Charly said.
“I tell people the same, but it sounds way more legit in your French accent,” I said.
We both laughed.
That evening, on shore, Charly introduced me to a patchwork of sailors from across Southern California and beyond. Some cruised doublehanded as partners, others sailed as families, and still others with gaggles of friends. Chris Chang Dumortier was among them. She’d sailed over with her husband, Alexis, and their daughter on Galileo, their Lagoon 46. She talked with me about the privilege of owning a boat, the ease of entertaining friends on a cat, but mostly about how sailing has enriched their lives.
“In a fast-moving world, sailing teaches you the quality of being able to wait,” she said. “It’s not about what’s next; it’s now. On the water, the distractions are gone. For me, I connect even better with my family and friends when we’re sailing.”
The sun set; the moon rose. Back on the boat, I enjoyed a late-night conversation with Gunnar, his son, Evan, and Evan’s fiancée, Rachelle. Then, in my private cabin, I prepared to sleep in a style I never had before. Is this bed only a queen? Cause I feel like a king, I thought, looking out my cabin’s window at the island. Then, within seconds, I was out.
A flock of sailors was invited to do beach yoga in the morning. I’d taken a yoga class only once before—during the pandemic, alone in an incense-filled room with an instructor who looked like Steven Seagal. But this was different. Toes in the sand, looking out at the blue Pacific water, I inhaled, exhaled, and, at one point, almost touched my toes. “Nice and easy. There’s no wrong way to do this pose,” someone said. And even if there is, and I’m hurt, I’ll still be carried home on a catamaran, I thought.
After yoga, we hiked from Emerald Bay to the top of Arrow Point. Along the path, I chatted with Oliver and Hugo of Planet Wine, a family-owned importer and distributor of French wines and spirits based in California. We talked about sailing; I asked poorly framed questions about French wine (“Is California wine French wine?”) and took approximately as many selfies as a frat boy in Ibiza.
Then, if the afternoon couldn’t get any better, Charly invited me to try e-foiling. An e-foil is a small surfboard with an electric motor and an underwater wing that creates lift and allows the board to elevate above the water. For half an hour, I tried, failed, and persisted. Then, with dad-like encouragement from Danny at Just Foil (a Foil sales shop in LA) I sort of succeeded. For a few brief seconds, I rose like a middle-aged sphinx from the water—and then plummeted.
Back on the catamaran, I rinsed off in my own private shower and told everyone who’d listen about my athletic experience.
“You showered?” Gunnar said, raising an eyebrow. Turns out the water heater wasn’t on.
“No worries,” I said. The experience of showering on a sailboat was still incredible. “I’m feeling very pampered.”
There was a dinner party on shore that evening. The itinerary suggested white attire, so I threw on a boring white button- down and blue khakis. If I wasn’t invited as staff, I would manifest it now. With a glass of wine in each hand, I floated through the crowd and made conversation.
“Are you the photographer?” one person asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m the caterer.”
Yeah, I was having fun, but I was also on a mission. And so, over the next several hours I picked the brains of catamaran owners to see what I would discover. Kevin Karrick had left his Slipstream 50 (catamaran) in San Francisco and came down to sail with friends on a buddy’s Lagoon.
“Sailing to weather in a monohull can wear you down. Personally, I don’t mind, but when friends say they’re not coming back, I feel like I failed,” he told me. “Cruising cats offer the comforts of home, and I say why not? I want a boat where I can bring friends aboard and hang out. Most of all, I want them to come sailing and enjoy themselves.”
I did some serious socializing that night and the message was clear: People love catamarans, not simply because they’re comfortable, but because they allow them to share the magic of sailing with others. Also, these sailors weren’t just here to enjoy their boats, they were here to experience community.
Toward the end of the night, I was standing alone, hoping someone might accidentally tip me, when the harbor master walked up. Teddy Nguyen lives in Emerald Bay aboard his boat, a Lagoon 380. He’s part of the West End/Two Harbors Harbor Department team and was pumped when he found out the weekend event was a gathering of fellow Lagoon owners.
“I made a commitment to the sea,” he told me, “because the sea provided safe passage for my family.” In 1975, he and his family were boat refugees from Saigon to Guam. From Guam they ended up in Kansas. Years later, in Long Beach, California, a friend took him sailing on an Ericson 38.
“That was it for me,” he said. Teddy owned a Cal 39 before he found his Lagoon in San Francisco in 2020. “I got onboard and was amazed at the space. My first thought was, ‘Oh my God, I can take so many more of my friends out on the water.’ ”
I took notes while Teddy talked. I explained that I was a fellow sailor with a small monohull who’d tagged along for the weekend to get a closer look at catamaran life. Teddy understood but wasn’t focused on the differences between our boats. Instead, he saw our kinship as sailors.
“I’m in awe of the 50-foot cats, but I also know we all float on the same water,” he said. “Some boats offer more comfort, but the experience is the same. Sharing sailing and the camaraderie of the experience helps create a better world. At the end of the day, we all are brothers and sisters with a passion for the ocean.”
I slept like a baby and awoke at 5 a.m. “Not because of my circadian rhythm,” I told my boatmates later that final morning. “Because of the sunrise.”
Gunnar explained that my cabin had opening hatches, fans, and, importantly, window blinds. You’re kidding me, I thought. It was day three and I was still discovering amenities. Maybe there IS a button that orders drinks…
After breakfast, there was time for a little last-minute fun before our sail back to Marina Del Rey.
Gunnar’s son, Evan, had climbed up on our cat’s highest platform and was doing fancy looking dives into the bay’s deep green water. I’m 42, afraid of heights, and have a mediocre cannonball, so I decided I should join.
“Get this on camera,” I said before taking a middle-aged-man leap. “I could be Lagoon’s next male model.”
The marine layer cleared and the wind built to 12 knots on the passage home. Out in the shipping channel, we raised the mainsail, sorted an issue with the furling line, and unrolled the jib. Then, for the last 15 miles, I laid back on the cat’s trampoline and enjoyed conversation with my newfound friends about life, meaning, and, of course, sailing. While we talked, water raced beneath us. Waves splashed my butt like a French bidet. But what did it matter? I was having fun.
“At the beach—time you enjoyed wasting, is not wasted,” T.S. Eliot once wrote. If you ask me, it’s the same with sailing. As kids, our little catamaran was a sailboat, sure, but it was also a 6-foot-wide swim platform, a party-pad, a place to paint your toes and endlessly chat. Back then, wasting time on the boat with family and friends was magic, just as important as sailing, and it still feels much the same now.
For me, the best thing about my weekend on a Lagoon 42 wasn’t how the boat steered (itself), how fast it went, how warm the cold water felt, or how well the window blinds might have worked (had I used them). Ironically, for me, the best part was the unique way the boat got out of the way. The way it created a space for people to let their hair down, have fun, hang out, and connect.
Sure, I’m a monohull sailor. I’ve got hifalutin’ opinions, a confirmation bias, and a small budget that will probably always keep me on a small sailboat. But, if I ever get a shot at a big cruising catamaran—as captain, owner, or even as staff—I’ll go for it. Why not? After all, there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun.
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MHP&S Winter 2024
