International Multihull Show 2026: What's Actually New on the Docks

The 2026 International Multihull Show in La Grande-Motte just closed with a record fleet. Headline counts are useful for the press release but not for sailors trying to figure out what to spec on their next boat. Walking the docks for three days, four trends were obvious in the new releases and the conversations at the booths.

First, hybrid drives have stopped being a marketing line and started being a default. Lagoon, Fountaine Pajot, Catana, and Bali all had production hybrids on display, and the integration is finally usable. The Lagoon 51 hybrid pulls 6.5 knots under electric for roughly four hours from a 60-kWh battery bank, with regen on the drives generating 2 to 3 kilowatts at 8 knots boatspeed. The diesel comes on for charging and for any harbor maneuver above 4 knots. The cost premium runs 12 to 15 percent over the equivalent diesel-only version. For a couple cruising 1,500 to 2,000 nautical miles a year, that pays back in fuel over six to eight years — not great, but the noise reduction and anchorage manners are the actual selling point.

Second, the bridgedeck clearance war is back. After a decade of designers prioritizing internal volume, several new platforms — most notably the new HH 56 and the updated Outremer 55 — have moved clearance back up to 34 inches at the cabin sole. The trade-off is two inches of headroom forward and a slightly higher salon floor. For anyone who has spent a night at sea on a low-clearance cat in a confused sea, the trade is obviously worth it. The slamming on a low-clearance bridgedeck at 8 knots upwind in a 1.5-meter sea is not just unpleasant; it stresses the structure in ways that shorten the life of the boat.

Third, sail-handling automation is converging on a sensible standard. Furling booms are now fitted as standard on most cats over 50 feet. Captive winches with load cells are showing up on the larger platforms. The Karver and Harken systems both now integrate with NMEA 2000 in a way that lets autopilots automatically depower the main when boat speed exceeds a threshold or apparent wind exceeds a setpoint. This is the right direction. A short-handed couple on a 55-foot cat should not be hand-grinding a 75-square-meter mainsail in 20 knots of breeze.

Fourth, watermakers got smaller, faster, and more efficient. The Spectra Newport 700C now lives in the volume of a milk crate and produces 28 gallons per hour at 600 watts. Compared to a five-year-old equivalent producing 18 gallons per hour at 800 watts, that's a real generational shift. Combined with the larger lithium banks shipping standard on most new boats, the math on truly off-grid cruising in places without reliable shore power gets significantly better.

What did not impress: foil-assisted production cats. There were two on display, both honest about what they do, but the performance gain at typical cruising speeds (8 to 11 knots) is in the 5 to 8 percent range, and the maintenance overhead, anchorage handling, and shoal draft penalty are real. Foils make sense on a race boat, on a 90-foot performance multihull where the deltas are larger, or on the next round of fully foiling platforms. They do not yet make sense on a 50-foot family cat that spends six months at anchor in the Caribbean.

Also notable: the secondhand brokerage section was busy. Boats from the 2018-to-2021 build years are coming on the market in volume as the first owners trade up. A clean Lagoon 50 from 2019 was changing hands at around 20 to 25 percent below new equivalent pricing, with the same systems and a known maintenance history. For buyers who care about fitness for purpose more than the latest spec sheet, that's the smarter play right now.

The show's value isn't the hardware; it's the conversation density. Three days in La Grande-Motte tells you what the next two model years are going to look like. The signal this year is clear: cruising multihulls are getting quieter, drier, and easier to sail short-handed. None of that is glamorous. All of it matters.