Jonathan, Draw me a Multihull… Episode #1
At last, our colleague Jonathan Jagot has finally stepped ashore... albeit for a good reason: now based in South Africa, the young adventurer is overseeing the design and construction of his first catamaran, the Reflex 46.
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Publié le
25/09/2025
Par
Jonathan Jagot
Numéro :
204
Parution :
Nov.
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Dec.
2025
There was this idea, an almost instinctive need: one day, I would have my own catamaran. Not one that I would buy, no. One that would be entirely my own, designed down to the smallest detail, born of my imagination and my desire for freedom.
At the time, I knew nothing about boats. Even less about offshore sailing. I was just a child who dreamed and drew. I spent hours sketching the outline of my ideal multihull in a large notebook, with a simple ruler and pencil.
The years passed. I immersed myself in the maritime world. I sailed and I lived on board. Mile after mile, experience after experience, my ideas matured, and my project became more concrete. I discovered details that only sailors understand, those little things that make a sailboat exceptional or ordinary. Each observation became an improvement on my drawings.
When I turned 16, my parents gave me my first computer. That’s when things got serious. I discovered Pages and Keynote, the default software on Apple, which was enough to bring my ideas to life in 2D. I spent hours designing my hulls, decks and interiors. It was still a dream at this stage, but a dream that was beginning to take shape.
More years passed. I continued sailing with my parents, finished school, and we completed our round-the-world trip when I was 18. I then felt that I had more capacity to delve into this project in a little more detail or at least give it a shot.
I threw myself into 3D design, without having any expertise in the subject. In three months, I taught myself how to use the software, following the lines of the catamaran I had been drawing for all those years.
I finally managed to create something interesting. After all those hours spent on my laptop, I was finally able to visualize my multihull – I was thrilled! All that effort and those sleepless nights had led to a concrete project... well, almost! I quickly realized that I was merely following a dream: how could I finance the construction of a catamaran over 45 feet long when I was only 20 years old?
My life as a sailor continued. I bought my first sailboat, Sagar Rani, a 52-foot ferrocement ketch, and set off around the world. For six years, I continued the adventures of my youth with my parents – I lived the best life I could imagine.
From time to time, I revisited the catamaran project, gathering information as I gained new experiences. I mainly observed. I wrote everything down: the good ideas, the bad ones too...
I visited shipyards and talked to builders and experienced sailors. I regularly tested and compared different designs. I sailed on all kinds of multihulls, from the most modest to the most high-performance. I carried my project around with me in my backpack, on my computer’s hard drive, but above all in my head. It evolved with me. Reflex didn’t exist yet, but it was already there. It lived in my virtual files, in my scribbled notebooks, in my daydreams.
Very quickly, I found the name for my catamaran: Reflex, like a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR), because I wanted photography to enable me to realize this dream. Then one day, after all those years of sailing, I settled down for a while in the San Blas Islands to charter Sagar Rani.
As I recounted – with great enthusiasm, of course – all my adventures summarized above, Holger, who had just arrived from Germany, became very interested in my catamaran project. We ended up discussing the subject for hours, and an idea came to him. Without hesitation, he made me an offer.
We were both well lubricated with rum, and I thought to myself that we were just dreaming together, imagining ourselves sipping those same cocktails on our future luxury catamaran, in the most idyllic locations.
Then he said to me, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, with clear heads.” My night was filled with joy, dreams and hope.
And it turned out that it was all real, not just empty words! I’ll spare you all the details that followed... What I can tell you is that today, Reflex is coming to life and construction has begun. In South Africa.
All the information I had gathered over the years finally came in handy. Within a month, I had already found the shipyard and the architects, all based near Cape Town.
I then threw myself 100% into this project, which, in the end, was just waiting for me...
I sold my boat, and then the crew – that is, my girlfriend, my cat and I – booked our one-way tickets to South Africa without further ado. So here we are, based in Cape Town for a little over a year so that I can follow the construction of Reflex on a daily basis.
For me, it’s an incredible dream come true, at 27 years old. I’m finally going to get my 46-foot catamaran!
