Editorial of magazine Multihulls World #195

While Germany’s boot Düsseldorf, the world’s largest indoor boat show remains a must-see event, with an exhibition area of 220,000 m² (just short of 55 acres) and 214,000 visitors (compared to 237,000 in 2023) from all over Europe and even much further afield, with some 120 nationalities represented, the 2024 edition will be remembered as a return to normality following two years of post-Covid euphoria. Some players are even nervous about the damage caused by inflation, rising interest rates and geopolitical uncertainties. For us, the 2024 boot vintage was most notably all a missed appointment for the multihull sailboat industry. Apart from a few sport catamarans and beach toys, only the Tricat 6.90 made the trip from Brittany to be displayed in hall 15, traditionally reserved for multihulls. With the exception of the Excess stand and the more or less modest representations of a few builders or their distributors (Fareast, Fountaine Pajot, Gunboat, McConaghy, Nauticks, Nautitech, NEEL Trimarans, Windelo...), builders of two- and three-hull boats clearly boycotted the show this year, making the ‘multihull village’ a deserted place. The absence of Lagoon, by far the world leader in this sector, is obviously highly symbolic.
As for the powercats, the atmosphere was a little less bleak, with the presence of the Prestige M48, the YOT 36 and numerous projects which we will, of course, be presenting in this issue. The Dragonfly 32 and 40 were presented in Hall 16, alongside the monohulls. This is a long-standing incursion by the Danish shipyard that specializes in folding trimarans - with hall 15 only a stone’s throw away... So, it’s presumably time to talk about the subject that’s causing a stir: if multihull builders don’t come to Düsseldorf anymore, well, that’s certainly because it’s complicated, costly, and not exactly ecological to transport big boats… but above all, it’s because they don’t feel they get much consideration at boot, despite the fact that they have become the undeniable driving force in the boating sector. Faced with somewhat old-fashioned attitudes, the multihull builders are unashamedly demanding access to the heart of the famous and prestigious Hall 16 (it’s the largest), even if it means upsetting the establishment... we’re witnessing a kind of war of the worlds: that of the old and its traditional teak-railed monohulls against the modern and its yachts built for living aboard - with two or three hulls. But then no-one ever said that the history of yachting could be summed up like the tranquility of slack water at the top of a high tide.

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