400: Lagoon 400

[Hyprdrv]

Garold,
My 410 has a hose from each forward storage and sugar scoop compartments to the bilge area with a valve at the end. this allows for drainage of small amounts (or large for that matter) into the bulge compartments. At the dock you leave them open for small amounts of water to drain from these areas, like condensation, and underway you close them for a sealed bulkhead. We also have separate bulge pumps (2) for the sugar scoop storage.
The real question should be what do you do if the motors are under the bunk inside??

Steve in Solomons MD

[hanafe]

Garold,
I have the same valves in the bilge which Steve is mentioning, to be able to let small volumes of water going into the bilge to be pumped out.
I checked my bulkheads before and I am pretty sure they are not 100% water tight, because of all the pipes and cables mentioned before. I will have another look next Saturday.
I have a strong mobile emergency pump on the boat, to pump out water from bulkhaeds or anywhere else needed. The downside is of course, it will only work as long as the generator is up.

Concerning the story of the L 500, I believe there must be a bit more behind than we know. A dinghy line ripping off the whole engine from its mount would worry me more than a leaking bulkhead. As well why did the second hull sink right away as well?

Mast wind noise.
The mentioned noise we have of course as well if I make the toplifiting and mainsheet too tight. My standard procedure is to have no tension on the rigg and secure the boom from swinging with 2 preventers.
Sunny here, NE 4 - 5, 24 degree C.
HanaFe

[hanafe]

There is a full report following that link on the yahoo lagoon owners group.
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/1384184...rveyors%29.pdf

Reading the report I realized I was less than 5 miles away when it happenend, but on shore. What a small world.

By the way she submerged and did not sink.
I feel very sorry for the owner.

HanaFe

[Garold]

Originally Posted by hanafe

Garold,
I have the same valves in the bilge which Steve is mentioning, to be able to let small volumes of water going into the bilge to be pumped out.
I checked my bulkheads before and I am pretty sure they are not 100% water tight, because of all the pipes and cables mentioned before. I will have another look next Saturday.
I have a strong mobile emergency pump on the boat, to pump out water from bulkhaeds or anywhere else needed. The downside is of course, it will only work as long as the generator is up.

Concerning the story of the L 500, I believe there must be a bit more behind than we know. A dinghy line ripping off the whole engine from its mount would worry me more than a leaking bulkhead. As well why did the second hull sink right away as well?

Mast wind noise.
The mentioned noise we have of course as well if I make the toplifiting and mainsheet too tight. My standard procedure is to have no tension on the rigg and secure the boom from swinging with 2 preventers.
Sunny here, NE 4 - 5, 24 degree C.
HanaFe

Looks like we both get the same wind noise from the rigging often only noticed at night when everthing else is quiet. And it seems like we have both discovered the same solution of lessening tension on the rig.

On my L400 I have rope cutters on both props, as I did on my Lagoon 380. On my 380 I had to replace one of the cutters after only a few months (at great expense and misery to me) as I discovered it to have lost most of its teeth and bent beyond repair. However, the engineer reminded me that if the rope cutter had not done its job and chopped whatever was wrapped round it, the damage could have been much worse.

The L500 story could therefore have easily been me, because the engineer reckoned that to damage the rope cutter so much, it must have been steel cable round the props. I never considered that the shearing force could have dislodged an engine from its mountings though.

But I guess we will all be looking more carefully into our engine rooms thinking 'what if?' sometime over the next few months.

And Hanafe......... todays temperature in North London only reaches -1 degrees C at lunchtime today. And snow is threatening later! Wish I was where you are!

Cheers

Garold

[YOGAO]

Originally Posted by hanafe

There is a full report following that link on the yahoo lagoon owners group.
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/1384184...rveyors%29.pdf

Reading the report I realized I was less than 5 miles away when it happenend, but on shore. What a small world.

By the way she submerged and did not sink.
I feel very sorry for the owner.

HanaFe

Pretty good report. Yes, very sorry for the owner. I have to wonder what will happen now that the surveyor has stated that the sinking was due to a manufacturing defect. Surely there will be a lot of back and forth between Lagoon, the insurer and the owner - ugh!

RE: Wind noise. Yes, as you have all discovered there is a fine line (no pun intended) on how much to tension the topping lift, main sheet and preventer.

On TabbyCat, we always have the preventer on at anchor to stop the boom from swaying. The little bit of boom swaying creates little creaking noises at the boom/mast "joint". When the wind picks up to 20+ knots, the topping lift begins to thrum. Then the dance begins. Ease the topping lift a bit. Did I ease it too much? Yes, the creaking begins. Re-tighten the topping lift, or perhaps the mainsheet with a finer control? A few trips from one winch to the next, easing and tightening usually gets it done, but sometimes (especially @ 3AM!) you crawl back into bed, thinking that you have solved the "noises", and just as you start to drop back into the bliss - THRUMMMMM!

Fair Winds,
Mike

[Hyprdrv]

This really bothers me.

"An attempt had been made (Lagoon) to seal the hole with what
appears to be spray foam but was demonstrated to be unsuccessful despite the addition of “gunk” by us for salvage."

I had seen this "foam" on EG at the scoop side and assumed it was a water tight seal although I think in the back of my mind it just didn't look right.

Steve in Solomons MD

[hanafe]

Before this thread is falling into a complete winter sleep I add a video below to keep it alife:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCwPA3VWWqo

[careka]

Mast wind noise.

on our mono we got the wind singing from the mast. airflow aound it.
Then we always hoisted a fender up say 4 meters and you change the airflow and the singing went away.

try it. it worked for us.
and have a happy new sailing year.

L380 # 637

[hanafe]

Hi L 400 owners,

I found following thread of another owner of an L 400 in another forum.

Did anyone of you experience similiar problems with the electrics and did you hear about a service warning from Yanmar concerning leaking oil?

rgds
HanaFe

In lagooncatowners@yahoogroups.com, "aclyachtcharters" <danmount@...> wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> I have recently joined this helpful forum and come across this article. I am
the skipper of a lagoon 400 (hull number 6) which we have recently taken over 9
months old and not aware of any such warning from Yanmar. We have the 39Hp
engines with the SD50 sail drives.
>
> I have looked on the Yanmar website for such a service warning but can not
find it. I would like to find it before showing it to the previous owners to see
if they have done it. Any ideas?
>
> On a different note, an elbow joint seal (which is part of the water cooling
system) has leaked and burned out our electrics. The Yanmar engineer who came
onboard took pictures and sent them off to Yanmar before Christmas. We're
currently waiting for Yanmar to approve the warranty but the Dutch agents have
shut down till 10th January. Has anyone else experience a fault like this?
>
> Dan

[timandchanel]

Thanks for the video hanaFe
Tim

[Lucky Larry]

Fellow Lagoon 400 owners,

We just returned from our boat, and I'm very happy to report that the smell is gone. To stop it, we cleaned out the line from the toilet to the holding tank, sealed the hose to the tank with silicone, and used some spay in foam to seal the space between the holding tank location and the back of the vanity/sink area. We believe that we were getting venting into the area above the tank, which the silicone has now eliminated.

So, we had a much happier 1st Mate, which makes for a much happier Skipper.

Cheers,
Lucky Larry

[Hammer]

Hello all

I'm so glad I found this forum and this thread. I've been reading it since I joined only a couple of days ago.

Like a few people here (D&D; Deane etc), I've started doing my research and due dilligence on which Cat is best for me. Its looking like the L400 is becoming that boat more and more. I just need to know if I can live with the dissapointments of build quality from a new boat as experienced by new owners here. Maybe it's just an unrealistic expectation of me that these things should not happen nowadays. Specially from an experienced yacht buillder like Beneteau. I just need to weigh the pros and cons.

As many have already said here before, there seems to be more info from this forum and this thread alone, than what is available from the dealers and manufacturer's official website. Lagoon has just updated their brochure online (Jan 2011) but clearly they're still using old photos as the brochure do not show the welcome updates that are shown on Peterp's photos (thank you peter).

I have laughed (specially from Garold's comments), cringed (peterp's fueling incident) and learnt a lot (Garold, Hanafe, paulrack, peterp) since reading this. I'm sure this thread will be a source of info for me and return to it time and time again if I decide to go the L400 way - just look at the many tips I've already learnt about controlling bad smells on the head

Anyway sorry to be off-topic. I just thought I'd introduce myself, and let you know that even though I don't have a yacht yet, how much I appreciate everyones contributions.

A big thanks.

[Cotemar]

Lagoons,

Just like to know if some of you Lagoon owners would like to start a formal Lagoon owners group.
Please let me know.
I can help you set up forums catered to your different model Lagoons.

Here is an example of one we have going.

Fountaine Pajot - Cruisers & Sailing Forums

Mark

[D&D]

Originally Posted by Hammer

I just thought I'd introduce myself

Welcome Hammer...to both this thread and the Forum. We certainly identify with and share your appreciation for all the information available here; it was a HUGE help to us throughout our searching...over the past 4 years! Not sure where you are in your search process, but wherever you may be, keep looking around here, this whole Forum as well. Also check out Multihulls4us, another (sorta parallel) forum with special emphasis on multihulls, altho this Forum is perhaps better for all-round information and pooling of experience on the whole spectrum of 'issues' for cruisers.

We also reached what appears to be your comfort level with the L400...and we still think it's a great vessel...with the same concerns. Our conclusion about build qaulity was that there will be issues with every new vessel...and with ANY vessel, frankly, altho a used vessel (provided it's well cared for...a BIG proviso!) should have the new bugs well spotted already. If you decide to go with a new vessel, we suggest you take the same key precaution that applies when buying a used vessel...engage an independent, professional surveyor...and then keep track of ALL the issues you read about here to use in your instructions to your surveyor...and do all this before you officially accept the delivery of your vessel.

We ended up (only this week actually!) buying a 2010 model Lagoon 440. The xtra room and the overall layout really suited our purposes. The value buying overseas -- This may not last long, of course -- was also very attractive, if you're prepared for the effort required! So we set off next week on the ~14000NM (the Med, the Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, the Pacific) voyage bringing 'CatNirvana' home...and perhaps we'll meet up with you on your vessel on some beautifull anchorage along the Aussie coast in the not too distant future!?

Cheers all,
D&D

[timandchanel]

Re build quality, a new L400 just arrived at the marina down the road from me and was looking at it a few hours ago with my family. The cosmetic changes are v.nice, there are a few others too like SS protectors where the dock lines come over the sides to prevent chafing, there may be others as well (apologies for not taking photos, I didn't even think to, perhaps I will tomorrow). It is great to see this constant minor improvement.

However there is a lot of really bad cosmetic finishing on the hull esp. the soft joins between the hull and coachroof, the deck and cabin sides etc. I'm sure this isn't structural or anything like that, just waterproofing or finishing, but it looks so sloppy on a half million dollar product. You'd never see that on a Bentley for example. It really took the edge off the 'wow' factor of this big shiny new boat. If I'm there tomorrow I will take some snaps for you Hammer.

Still its an incredible amount of boat for 40ft and these cosmetic imperfections shouldn't ultimately put you off, if it was from a lesser known builder or a custom yard you would really wonder about the quality of the entire vessel.