Fountaine Pajot Isla 40 Review: The Sailor's Catamaran

Quick Verdict

The Fountaine Pajot Isla 40 is the catamaran you recommend to a monohull sailor who has finally admitted they want more space but refuses to stop sailing. At 10,300 kg, she is 1,400 kg lighter than the Lagoon 40, points at 45° to the true wind rather than the Lagoon's optimistic 50–55°, and delivers genuine rudder feedback through the wheel. She does not pretend to be a monohull. She is unmistakably a cat. But she is a cat that rewards the person who trims the jib.

Four cabins, four heads, an 11.93 m hull. The living space is generous but not class-leading. If your primary criterion is interior volume per euro, the Lagoon 40 wins that contest. If your primary criterion is how the boat feels between your hands when the wind fills in at 14 knots on a beam reach, the Isla 40 wins something far more important. This is the 40-foot catamaran for people who still think sailing is the point.

Specifications

Under Sail

Here is the number that matters: 45°. That is the Isla 40's effective pointing angle in 12–15 knots of true wind with the sails properly trimmed. The Lagoon 40 sits at 50–55° under the same conditions. Five to ten degrees sounds academic until you are trying to lay a harbour entrance on the nose and the difference between one tack and three becomes two hours of your afternoon.

The hull form is the reason. Fountaine Pajot's VPLP-designed hulls are finer in the entry, with less wetted surface area. At 10,300 kg she carries 1,400 kg less than the Lagoon 40, and you feel that immediately in light air. In 8 knots of breeze the Isla 40 will ghost along at 4.5–5 knots where heavier cats are reaching for the engine key. She is not a racing machine. But she moves when you expect a cat not to.

On a close reach in 15 knots, the boat comes alive. Sheet the genoa in properly, ease the traveller up, and you will see 7.5 knots on the instruments. More importantly, you will feel the acceleration when you trim correctly. This is what separates the Isla 40 from most production cats: cause and effect. You do something with the sheets, the boat responds. On many 40-foot cats, trimming feels like a suggestion the boat may or may not acknowledge.

Downwind in 18–20 knots she is stable and well-mannered, tracking straight with minimal weather helm. The twin rudders provide clear feedback. Not monohull-level feedback, no cat delivers that, but enough that the helm feels connected to the water rather than to a video game. Tacking through 90° is reasonable if you keep boat speed up, though in under 10 knots she will occasionally stall if you rush it. Bear away slightly before tacking in light stuff. Standard cat technique.

Living Aboard

The Isla 40's beam is 6.63 m, against 6.76 m on the Lagoon 40. Thirteen centimetres. It sounds trivial, but you notice it in the saloon. The Lagoon feels like a studio flat. The Isla feels like a large boat. Both are accurate descriptions. Neither is a criticism.

The four-cabin, four-head layout is the charter standard, and the Isla delivers it competently. Each cabin gets a proper double berth. The forward cabins in each hull measure roughly 2.05 m × 1.50 m, the aft cabins slightly smaller at 2.00 m × 1.40 m. Headroom in the hulls is 1.90 m, adequate for most people, tight for anyone over 1.85 m. The heads are compact but functional, each with a separate shower stall rather than the wet-room-over-the-toilet arrangement that plagues smaller cats.

The saloon is where you feel the design priorities. Fountaine Pajot allocated less volume to the interior and more to the cockpit and sailing deck. The galley is an L-shaped unit to port, functional and well-ventilated with an opening hatch directly above the stove. Fridge capacity is 130 L, enough for a week if you provision sensibly, tight if you do not. The nav station is integrated rather than standalone, a concession to the 40-foot footprint.

The cockpit is where this boat distinguishes itself from the Lagoon 40. The dining table seats eight, but the layout keeps the winches and sheet leads within reach of the helm positions. You can eat dinner here, then sail the boat from the same general area without rearranging the furniture. On the Lagoon, the cockpit is a living room that happens to be outdoors. On the Isla, it is a sailing cockpit that also works for dinner. The distinction matters more than it sounds.

On Deck

The flybridge is optional on the Isla 40, and a significant number of boats, particularly in charter fleets, do not have it. This is, counter-intuitively, a strength. Without the flybridge, the Isla 40 has a lower centre of gravity, a cleaner deck layout, and a profile that looks more yacht than floating villa. The hardtop bimini that replaces it provides shade over the cockpit and integrates a solar panel array neatly.

For boats fitted with the flybridge, you gain a second helm station and a lounging area up top. It adds roughly €18,000–22,000 to the build cost and perhaps 180 kg of weight above the waterline. It is pleasant in harbour and on downwind legs. It is less pleasant when you are trying to sail the boat properly to windward and wondering why the motion feels slightly more animated than it should.

Sail handling is straightforward and well thought out. The mainsheet runs to a winch accessible from either helm position. The genoa sheets lead aft cleanly, and the self-tacking jib option, available as a factory fit, makes short-handed sailing genuinely easy. The trampoline forward is taut and well-secured, a good place to sit in settled conditions. Transom access on both hulls is via fold-down steps with integrated swim platforms, each roughly 1.2 m × 0.6 m. Adequate for boarding a dinghy, not large enough for serious sunbathing.

One note on med mooring: the 6.63 m beam means the Isla 40 fits in most standard berths without the penalty surcharges that wider cats attract. At marinas in Croatia and Greece where berthing fees are calculated on beam, this saves €20–50 per night compared to a 7.7 m cat.

The Catamaran Question

If you have spent your sailing life on monohulls, heeling at 20°, grinding winches, feeling the keel bite, the Isla 40 is the catamaran most likely to keep you happy. That is not a small claim. Let me be specific about what it means and what it does not.

It means this: you can sheet the genoa in two inches and watch the speed build by half a knot. You can point at a mark and have a reasonable chance of laying it. You can feel, through the helm, what the rudders are doing. The sailing loop, observe, adjust, feel, still works on this boat. On many production cats, particularly the Lagoon 42 and Lagoon 46, that loop is muted. You trim, and the boat continues.

What it does not mean: the Isla 40 sails like a monohull. It does not heel. The motion is different, quicker and snappier in a chop, with a pitch-and-yaw pattern that monohull sailors find unfamiliar at first. There is no keel, so leeway in light air is noticeable. You will not point as high as your old Sun Odyssey 380. You will not feel the same deep connection between helm and hull. This is a catamaran, and catamarans are a different kind of sailing.

But of all the 40-foot production cats I have sailed, and I have sailed most of them, the Isla 40 preserves the most of what makes sailing feel like sailing. If you are a mono sailor contemplating your first cat charter, start here. If you are a mono sailor who tried a Lagoon and felt hollow, try this.

Charter Market

The Isla 40 occupies the mid-tier of the charter catamaran market. At €3,800–6,000 per week depending on season and base, she sits roughly level with the Lagoon 40 on price but below the Lagoon 46 and larger Bali models. For real-world charter costs including extras, expect to add €1,000–1,800 for deposits, end cleaning, outboard hire, and transit logs.

Availability is growing but still trails Lagoon significantly. In Croatia and Greece, the two largest bareboat markets, you will find roughly one Isla 40 for every four or five Lagoon 40s. Quality-focused operators like Dream Yacht Charter and Navigare stock her, as do several independent Croatian and Greek fleets. In the top charter cat rankings, she consistently appears alongside boats costing €1,000 more per week.

The operators who choose the Isla 40 tend to be the ones who care about sailing feedback from their clients. That self-selects for better-maintained boats, in my experience. When comparing catamaran brands, Fountaine Pajot's build quality sits a notch above Lagoon in fit and finish, though the gap has narrowed in recent years.

Used Market

The Isla 40 launched in 2021, so the used market is still young. Current model Isla 40s from 2021 to 2024 trade between €290,000 and €400,000, with charter-exit boats at the lower end and private, low-hour examples at the top. A three-year-old charter boat with 1,500 engine hours and the standard spec will sit around €310,000–330,000.

The predecessor, the Lucia 40 (2016–2020), is the better value play. Prices range from €240,000 to €330,000 depending on year and condition. The Lucia shares the same design DNA, VPLP hulls, similar displacement, but has a slightly different interior layout and lacks some of the Isla's refinements to the cockpit and helm ergonomics. If you can live without the updated dashboard and revised transom steps, the Lucia 40 is a strong buy.

What to inspect on either model: check the daggerboard trunks for delamination if fitted with optional boards. Examine the engine mounts. The 20 hp Yanmars are reliable but the mounts on early Isla 40s were under-specified, and Fountaine Pajot issued a service bulletin in 2022. Check all four hull-to-deck joints at the transom corners. Run the watermaker if fitted, membrane replacement runs €800–1,200. And as with any yacht handover, check the standing rigging tension and the forestay furler drum for corrosion.