In his Sailing on Saturday blog of August 23rd, Afloat's W M Nixon reported on a sail test of the new-to-Ireland Lagoon 52 cruising catamaran, which was undertaken with a crew of all the talents, including 1993 Round Ireland Record Holders Con Murphy and Cathy MacAleavey - their time of 44 hours for the circuit with Steve Fossett's 60ft trimaran Lakota still stands, despite being established all of twenty-one years ago.
In his report on the Lagoon 52, WMN commented:
"Not that you'll be using it (the steering wheel) for long, for with her efficient systems, this is a boat which will be largely steered by the auto-helm. And should they be needed, the 56hp engines with saildrives, neatly located in each hull down aft, move the Lagoon 52 very sweetly indeed with little fuss and less noise. In fact, with her ultra-modern architecturally-inspired appearance and ease of movement under quite small power packs, I suggested to Ross that she surely would make a very handy if unusual motor-cruiser. Not surprisingly, he said that there is already a handsome power version of the Lagoon 63 available which cruises at 12 knots and can reach 16 with very little bother, and in a very few weeks time there'll be a similar variant on the Lagoon 52".
As it happens Ross O'Leary of MGM was just slightly ahead of the curve - the power-yacht version of the Lagoon 63 sailing cat has only just made her debut on the market this week, while the smaller power cruiser will be based not on the Lagoon 52, but on the Lagoon 39 (there's one based in Malahide), with the powerboat being the Lagoon 40MY.
The above vid show that our reviewer was spot on – the new Lagoon 630MY is a very cool piece of kit. In fact, much and all as he is normally a sailboat fan, in this case Nixon reckons it's the power version which hits the button. "Why cart that ludicrously tall pitch-inducing sky-scraping rig around with you, when you can have the utterly elegant effortlessly moving pleasure platform which is the Lagoon 630MY, and with less expense and hassle?" he asks.
