An NBA champion and former France captain, Boris Diaw is living the dream, spending half of each year as General Manager of the men’s national team and the other half aboard Babac, his Lagoon Seventy 7 catamaran.

Diaw set up Babac for scuba diving, with an advanced compressor and dedicated tank storage

It’s easy to think that Boris Diaw is truly living the dream. A former NBA champion with the San Antonio Spurs, the 43-year-old now spends half of each working year as General Manager of the France men’s team, having represented and captained Les Bleus during his exceptional playing career.

At last year’s Paris Olympics, the current team delighted home crowds by reaching the final, although their dream of gold was ended by the hot favourites, an all-star US team featuring Lebron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant. But don’t feel too sorry for Diaw. The Frenchman spends the other six months of each year aboard Babac, the customised Lagoon Seventy 7 he has owned since 2018.

Diaw’s original plan for the yacht was a 13-year tour of the world. Babac spent its first year in the Mediterranean then crossed the Atlantic to spend two years in the Caribbean as well as Central and South America. For the past four years, the boat has been based in the South Pacific, where Diaw has travelled around the likes of French Polynesia, Fiji and Bora Bora.

Babac, Diaw’s customised Lagoon Seventy 7

“It has been perfect so far. I really feel like I’m at home when I’m on the boat,” says Diaw, who is a qualified diving instructor and sailboat skipper, complementing his former role as capitaine of France.

“We do a lot of exploration and we’re able stay for weeks at a time at remote islands, away from civilisation. The boat was principally made for me to enjoy, so it only charters when I’m not using it. We could charter it more, but I use it a lot!”

BIG LEAGUE

At 6ft 8in, Diaw towers over most of us and comes across as the archetypal ‘gentle giant’ – relaxed, with an easy smile and seemingly happiest when talking about his darling Babac. But he’s no pushover.

The 6ft 8in Diaw is a French basketball icon

The son of Issa Diaw, a Senegalese high jump champion, and the former France centre Elisabeth Riffiod, herself 6ft 2in, Diaw had athletic genes and international-calibre sport in his blood. Born and raised in Bordeaux, he was 21 when he moved to the US to play in the NBA, one of the world’s most high-profile and competitive sports leagues.

His ambition to reach for the top drove the power forward to compete in the league for 14 years, initially for Atlanta Hawks, Phoenix Suns – where he won NBA Most Improved Player in 2006 – and Charlotte Bobcats. His career peaked at the San Antonio Spurs, where he spent four years as teammates with superstar Tim Duncan and close friend Tony Parker, Diaw’s long-time France teammate. Diaw had even been best man at Parker’s wedding to actress Eva Longoria.

In Diaw’s first full season with the Spurs, the team reached the 2013 NBA Finals, eventually losing 4-3 to a stacked Miami Heat side starring Lebron James, Ray Allen, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. However, when the teams met again in the Finals a year later, Spurs ran out 4-1 winners, with Diaw leading the assists table and ranking second in rebounds across the best-of-seven series.

Babac’s itinerary included periods in the Mediterranean and Caribbean before the South Pacific

Diaw was also a long-time captain of France, making 247 appearances for the national team and helping Les Bleus win EuroBasket in 2013, plus silver and two bronzes in the biennial event, as well as a bronze at the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain. Off the court, he was President of JSA Bordeaux and Metropolitans 92 basketball clubs, during and after his NBA career respectively.

BIRTH OF BABAC

Diaw eventually called a halt to his competitive basketball career at the age of 36 in 2018, the year he took delivery of Babac. However, the self-confessed perfectionist had been carefully preparing for his retirement for several years before that.

For much of his NBA career in the US, Diaw’s base in France between basketball seasons was in Arcachon Bay, where he made the most of his love of the sea and water sports by enjoying many days out on his RIB, diving and fishing. However, his decision to buy a yacht to enjoy after the end of his playing career was prompted by a diving trip aboard a friend’s Lagoon 420 sail cat in Martinique, part of the French West Indies.

Diaw is a qualified dive instructor and boat skipper

“I was only on the boat for a couple of days, but it was like a life revelation,” Diaw admits. “I was still playing basketball, and played for another five or six years. However, I realised in the future that I could buy a boat and have the freedom to travel the world and go diving whenever I wanted, so I decided to get into boating.”

Despite his positive impressions of Lagoon and having been raised in Bordeaux, where the Groupe Beneteau brand builds its 50ft-plus models in the Construction Navale Bordeaux (CNB) facility, Diaw is adamant that Lagoon wasn’t an automatic choice for his first yacht.

“I was a perfectionist when I was playing, so I also wanted to be a perfectionist at retirement! I had a long career, so I wanted to have the best retirement I could,” Diaw smiles.

“I didn’t know much about boating and owning a yacht was a new world for me, so I wanted to make sure I had the right one for what I wanted to do. I did a lot of my own research and looked at many different builders. I also learned boats are very expensive!

Babac is equipped with a 16ft Williams DieselJet 505 tender, plus a wide range of water toys

“However, I fell in love with Lagoon and the brand, visited the CNB shipyard, and learned more about how they make the boats and their focus on ecology. I also managed to see some older Lagoon catamarans that had aged well, and this was important to me because I was in this for the long run.”

EXPLORING THE BIG BLUE

When Diaw was looking to buy a sailing catamaran, the 620 was Lagoon’s largest model, which led him to consider a custom version, although he was ultimately looking for something bigger.

He was then alerted to Lagoon’s plans to build bigger yachts, with a model provisionally entitled the 720 eventually expanding into the Seventy 7. The new flagship premiered at the 2016 Cannes Yachting Festival and was the brand’s biggest sail cat until the Eighty 2, which will debut at Cannes this September.

During his research period, Diaw even travelled with Lagoon Brand Director Thomas Gailly to the Monaco Yacht Show with the mission to find a submersible, but was soon made aware that a sub-80ft sailing catamaran would struggle to carry and deploy a 5-tonne sub! However, the Seventy 7 did have more than enough space and headroom for a man standing 2.03m tall, with Diaw only requiring one change due to his size: the lowering of the shower floor by 15cm.

An avid traveller and explorer, Diaw says he feels “like I’m at home when I’m on the boat”

Diaw had Babac set up for long, autonomous diving trips. Customisations included the installation of a scuba compressor, including for Nitrox and Trimix, while the forepeaks are dedicated to storing tanks and other diving equipment. A qualified diving instructor, Diaw soon learnt to sail and became a qualified skipper after taking ownership of Babac.

“I wanted a boat that’s functional for diving because a lot of the cruising programme and itinerary is about diving,” he says. “And although Babac wasn’t made for a charter programme, I think it fits perfectly for charters and Babac has a lot of returning clients, which is the biggest compliment I can pay to the boat and Lagoon.”

Just past the halfway mark of his 13-year circumnavigation, Diaw seems truly happy with his purchase, which has maintained its condition as well as he hoped, an aspect commented on by charter guests. “The boat has aged really well and people that come on don’t believe that it’s seven years old,” Diaw says. “So far, so good.”

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