Fountaine Pajot Thira 80 SuperCatamaran Reviewed in 2025

Fountaine Pajot 80 Catamaran Review: A New Level of Luxury

Fountaine Pajot’s latest luxury catamaran is also their biggest—the Thira 80. Designed to compete with motor yachts over 100 feet long, the spacious vessel boasts more living space than any other charter cat, with excellent sailing performance to boot.

Also, the Fountaine Pajot 80 features innovative design offerings and accommodations that will make you reconsider the need for a motor yacht.

Here’s a look at this brand-new, state-of-the-art catamaran design’s design, aesthetics, performance, comfort, and technology.

Big, Elegant Design and Aesthetics of the Fountaine Pajot 80

At first glance, it’s easy to see the lineage of the Thira 80—it is undeniably a new-generation Fountaine Pajot, and it is clearly an extension of the Samana 59 and Alegria 67. Her striking grey hulls provide a nice contrast for the sea of other white catamarans in the fleet, and the impressive amount of lounging space is well situated to not make the yacht look bulky.

The 80 has a solid foredeck with no trampolines, making even more space for lounging on what FP calls the “Beach Club.” Sunlounges and an optional jacuzzi hot tub are located forward, with a recessed lounge before the salon. A watertight door directly into the salon and wide side decks with tall bulwarks allow easy access forward.

The boat also features unique side cockpits with fold-down wings, providing an unobstructed sea view.

With a 36-foot beam, there’s ample space for storage and small craft. This is an important element of the yacht lifestyle, with charter companies competing on amenities carried on board.

Below the cockpit lounge seating, Fountaine Pajot has included a special area with room for a water scooter, jet ski, or dive equipment. On the forepeaks, there are shallow wells for paddleboards and more gear.

The dinghy platform is on hydraulics to make a swim terrace. There’s room for up to a 4.3-meter tender.

Performance and Handling of the Fountaine Pajot 80

The Thira 80 is certainly a big boat, but in true Fountaine Pajot spirit, the boat still moves under sail. Her upwind sail area is over 3,500 square feet (325 square meters).

Cruise speed for this boat in most conditions will be around 10 knots, with a maximum of about 13. 

However, sailing performance numbers are hard to come by since the yacht is such a new design.

All line handling is led to twin flybridge helms, removing clutter from the lower salon and centralizing the crew area. Electric winches make sail handling easier. The proven fractional rig is as simple as it gets, and there are electric furlers on the working genoa and light-wind Code Zero.

Three engine options are available from the factory—175, 250, or 300 horsepower.

Comfort and Amenities Onboard the Fountaine Pajot 80

The Fountaine Pajot 80 is an enormous catamaran; it’s important not to forget that it would take a 120 to 150-foot monohull to get this amount of accommodations and living space. At 80 feet, she’s one of the largest production catamarans you can buy today.

The boat is offered in three main layout versions.

The Maestro, or owner’s version, has a large owner’s stateroom and bathroom, an impressive VIP stateroom and bathroom, and two guest cabins with double berths and ensuite heads.

The VIP version includes the large VIP or owner’s stateroom, bathroom, and four guest cabins with double berths and baths.

Finally, there’s the six-cabin version, which features six separate cabins with en suite private bathrooms and showers.

With all of the above versions, the crew has separate accommodations. These include a private double berth for the captain, two single bunks for the crew, and a crew mess area. The crew area is separate from the guest cabins, and the captain’s cabin has access to the cockpit via a gull-wing door. Additional crew accommodations can be fitted in the forepeak lockers if needed.

There are a few other choices to be made when you design your Thira 80. A big selection is where you would like your galley—up or down.

The galley-up design places the chef on the salon deck in the middle of the social space. This is generally preferred on private boats. But on a boat this size with crew to do the cooking, the galley down option places more social space in the salon and moves the galley to the crew area.

Fountaine Pajot 80: A Titan of Technology and Innovation

There are a few notable innovations on Fountaine Pajot’s new flagship.

While the boat retains a profile distinct from the company, a few unique features jump out.

The boat is fitted with wide, safe side decks, making transiting to the bow safe and easy. The bulwarks are high. However, to ensure a clean line of sight for those seated in the salon, there are glass panels in the gunwales so they do not block the view.

There are also ample built-in solar options in the Thira. Flexible photovoltaics are nothing new, and Fountaine Pajot has included a stunning four kilowatts of them on the flybridge and salon roof areas.

But the design can be upgraded further with another 4.2 kilowatts built into the clear overhead panels. These glass overheads are found on the edges of the cockpit roof and in sunroof panels over the salon and flybridge. The effect of these lets filtered light come through, increasing the feel of openness throughout the yacht while also producing a great deal of useable power.

The layout of the Thira continues a trend of other recent Fountaine Pajot projects, namely the Samana 59 and Alegria 67, that include spacious forward lounges. Additionally, the boat has a robust water-tight door that leads directly into the interior salon, much like the smaller Leopard catamarans feature, like the Leopard 50.

The Thira 80 goes a few steps further and includes a solid foredeck for even more space, with an optional jacuzzi hot tub on the forepeak and large paddleboard lockers on top of each side deck.

The Thira 80 also features fold-down “wings” or terraces on the cockpit edges. These offer increased deck space and better visibility for those facing out toward the sea and beautifully complement the outward-facing seating around the cockpit edges.

Fountaine Pajot 80 vs. Other Luxury Catamarans 

It’s impossible not to compare the Fountaine Pajot 80 to the Lagoon Seventy7, released in 2020. When you look at the specifications, the two boats are remarkably similar. Like the Lagoons, the Fountaine Pajot 80 will be offered in sail and motor yacht versions. Both are flybridge yachts with similar layouts.

The Thira 80 is also Fountaine’s answer to the successful line of “super cats” from Sunreef. The Sunreef 80 shares a similar layout, and the Sunreef Eco line aims to incorporate solar, electric power, and eco-conscious designs into the yacht lifestyle.

For motor yacht purists, however, Fountaine Pajot’s motor yacht version might prove compelling for private owners.

Concluding Thoughts: Who is the Fountaine Pajot 80 Right For?

Overall, the Thira 80 is a modern and innovative luxury catamaran built to harness the top-end charter boat market. Like their primary rival, Lagoon, the French builder has honed in on the superyacht segment—a catamaran so large that it competes on the level of a superyacht.

The Fountaine Pajot 80 is a big catamaran–a super catamaran, in fact–built to be handled by a crew of two or more while entertaining six or more guests. For this purpose, it is ideally suited.

While the Thira 80 is nowhere near the 145-foot Hemesphere superyacht, Fountaine Pajot’s latest and biggest is truly impressive.

It’s easy to see the Thira 80 as a very successful addition to the charter fleets in busy markets like the Mediterranean, BVIs, French Polynesia, and Thailand.