Lagoon 52, think twice before purchasing it

[Frank A]

If any body has a doubt about my good will, it will be a pleasure for me to transmit a partial ( 4 hours long ) but eloquent survey i asked from a Lloyds acreditaed surveyor one week ago. Just ask it on my email : nautilus589@hotmail.com and i'll send it as soon as i get your email. Good wind to all.

[Frank A]

To PRAIRIE CHICKEN.
I am also in Mayorca in Arenal Marina place # 327.
If yopu want to come and see by yourself, welcome. Preferably today, i will be leaving tomorrow by noon. Frank Lagoon 52 Haumana

[TOT]

Mike
You will find many satisfied customers like myself


SV TOT
Wayne 😃

[mjuneau]

Originally Posted by TOT

Mike
You will find many satisfied customers like myself


SV TOT
Wayne ��

thanks

[Prairie Chicken]

We don't have a car Frank, so a visit doesn't work. Where are you moving on to from here? FYI, this island has some of the best yacht service in the Med. if you need work done, or parts, this is an excellent place to find help. Also, we know the island well & could point you to some pleasant places to kill some time. On the flip side, marinas on the mainland is a great deal cheaper.

Good luck!


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[category4jay]

Originally Posted by Frank A

If any body has a doubt about my good will, it will be a pleasure for me to transmit a partial ( 4 hours long ) but eloquent survey i asked from a Lloyds acreditaed surveyor one week ago. Just ask it on my email : nautilus589@hotmail.com and i'll send it as soon as i get your email. Good wind to all.

Boo Yah!!! Go Frank go! I have no doubt in my mind Frank A is telling the straight up story of his very bad ongoing experience with Lagoon. As are others Lagoon OWNERS. Stories that do not shed favorably on Lagoon. So now all you people who wanted to see a list of issues from Frank A what are you going to do to help him?

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by category4jay

Boo Yah!!! Go Frank go! I have no doubt in my mind Frank A is telling the straight up story of his very bad ongoing experience with Lagoon. As are others Lagoon OWNERS. Stories that do not shed favorably on Lagoon. So now all you people who wanted to see a list of issues from Frank A what are you going to do to help him?

Again: please provide the list of owners with significant problems. More than just teething problems.

What do we do to help? Some have given some advice, I gave him a name of a good lagoon technician. There is not much more we can do.
I'm waiting for the survey report to better understand the issues.

[robert sailor]

The issues were not huge but there were a lot of them and its not what you would expect after cutting a check for a million bucks. It would sure rip me! When you look at some of the ways they attached stuff it sure comes off as someone nickle and dimeing the boat from one end to the other, its amazing what you have to pay these days for marginal quality.

[Frank A]

We left from la Rochelle to a coruna ( Spain ) then to Portugal ( Where the Lagoon Dealer is very serious and did his best to help us with the first trouble shootings ( we have lost complete navigation system in the middle of Biscay bay by night with 30 knots of wind ) Then we reached Gibraltar, with many stops before in Portugal and Spain, then the Balearics, Sardinia Sicilia, Italy , Croatia, the canal of Corynth, we visited about 12 island in Geece , Crrete, ( i know still in Greece but a bit different ) back to the west side of Peloponese then North of Sardinia and now we are in Mayorca on our way to Gibraltar before reaching Gran Canaria , cape verde and cross to sta Lucia with ARC + 2015. We sailed about 5000 NM since april and met trouble with the boat at least every 100 NM, most of them because some people in the factory did not do their job properly, forgot to place some parts or mounted them the wrong way … we are stillwaiting for some parts and some more are already waiting for us in Gibraltar. The screen on the flybridge and the auto pilot are out out order because with a beam reach we received some salt water and some one in the factory has "forgotten " to put some silicon around those materials. Sure in the BVIs, nobody would notice, but in Med it's a bir different when there is rough sea. Never pretended Portugal was in med but my English may be weak, it's only this.

[smj]

Originally Posted by rabbi

Again: please provide the list of owners with significant problems. More than just teething problems.



What do we do to help? Some have given some advice, I gave him a name of a good lagoon technician. There is not much more we can do.

I'm waiting for the survey report to better understand the issues.

So is Lagoon not responsible for handling teething problems?


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Frank A]

I hope so ! But you will also find a lot of owners who had even worse problems than mine.

Few people told me i have got the friday afternoon boat, but when you put the savings of a life time work on a boat, you cannot consider it as a lottery.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by mjuneau

I agree! I am looking at lagoon and use forums to gather information about issues etc... until I am ready to buy .

I don't want to be jaded by the rantings of some of the people here just bashing for no reason! More info please.


Mike

Open forums like this isn't really a good place to gather data. You could get some guy with an axe to grind, or a bunch of owners who don't want to publicly admit they wasted the better part of 1/2 mill on a POS boat. Ego and appearances are a powerful force for some people.

Join the owner's group and read all of the posts for a while. In there, among their own kind, they'll ask for advice and info to repair all of the things that they wouldn't dare ask on a public forum.

Subscribe to the Lagoon, FP, Leopard, St Francis, Catana, etc group, whomever you're interested in, and there you will find the true story of just how reliable/unreliable they are, and what the common problems are.

It was a REAL eye opener for me.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Frank A

If any body has a doubt about my good will, it will be a pleasure for me to transmit a partial ( 4 hours long ) but eloquent survey i asked from a Lloyds acreditaed surveyor one week ago. Just ask it on my email : nautilus589@hotmail.com and i'll send it as soon as i get your email. Good wind to all.

Frank, I have no doubts that you got a lemon. You're not happy with Lagoon's poor customer service, and for that kind of money, that's all that really matters.

I wish you the best, perhaps some Lagoon executive will read this and realize they're losing a LOT of business by acting like this. Thank you for being honest and willing to share your experience, I know a lot of people wouldn't for fear of losing resale value or to protect their ego.

Good luck and keep on them!!

[rabbi]

The canal route was just a joke


I received the survey report. Few of the items are really affecting seaworthiness but it clearly shows Lagoon sometimes produces lemons.

The saildrive oil leaks should be monitored. Clean & refill as necessary and kick the lagoon dealer to have them repaired. Could be as simple as a new o-ring on the dipsticks and is not Lagoon's fault.
The milky oil needs to be addressed asap or you will ruin the saildrive gear. It seems the shaft seals are broken, in that case you need a haulout. Why this is broken may only be seen when the seals are extracted. On a new boat i would guess you have caught some some fishing line or net which damaged the seals.
The gas installation should be revised to make it secure, drained and well-vented. This is looking dangeros to me,especially the part of the installation that resides in a normal cockpit locker.


Replace broken instruments as necessary. There should be no silicone used for bedding the instruments or autopilot. These come with suiteable gaskets. If these are missing the sub-contractor made a bad job. Not directly Lagoon's fault but the selection of their subcontractor as well as the QC certainly is.



All the other issues are not critical in the short term. But missing sealant on many deck fittings is going to cause water ingress into the balsa core which will lead to rot.

All the other items on the list are minor if numerous. lots of small issues all sum up. These indicate that Lagoon is taking shortcuts (missing or misplaced backing plates, furniture separating, etc), is not doing any good quality control (leaks!) and using sub-standard materials (corrosion on fittings and screws).

Some of the issues in the report indicate that this boat was put together in a rush and the builder was trying to save every penny. The older smaller Lagoons that i know have not had these issues.

Overall i would not consider the boat un-seaworthy. It has lots of small and medium teething and quality issues but it won't fall apart. But i do understand why you are pi**ed off after receiving a lemon for 1m USD.

Get the dealer to fix the issues. Keep written records and names of all persons involved. If they turn out to be unable or unwilling to resolve these issues talk to a lawyer in the country of the dealer to understand your options.

[meirriba]

Originally Posted by Frank A

I am the owner of a new Lagoon 52 and which was the dream of my life, this dream is turning to a nightmare. At first, when i purchased the boat in Annapolis boatshow 2014 all the team, including my canadian broker were very friendly and explained to me that in case of issues with Lagoon boats, they have a lot of representatives all around the world and my first journey being in Med, they insisted, in Mediteranean sea, they had more representatives than anywhere else… I got the delivery of the boat in La Rochelle and there a lot of problems started with the options i had chosen, most of employees who were supposed to install these options were not working more than 2 hours a day or did not come when they were supposed to, the worst of all being the software company who works there ( POCHON ) they are just thieves and offers no service but charge the high price to instal things without taking care it works. At the end i started with a fortnight delay on my departure date and was charged full price by the marina to have wait for Lagoon service that most of time did not come.
After 6 months across med from la Rochelle to Portugal ( where the Lagoon broker is really very serious and involves in his job to try to get you out of the problems from a very poor quality building)
, i met almost all of the Lagoon brokers on my road, most of time i wasted a week to wait for parts that never arrived or not the good ones or … and of course had to pay for very expensive marinas in some places i had nothing to do but wait for some parts. From La rochelle i noticed a leak of oil on the transmission box on starboard, on the first maintenance, this leak was supposed to be fix by Lagoon employees. In fact not only hey did not fix anything but since a leak appeared on the port transmission box while the starboard started to swallow some sea water. Today, once again stuck sine a week in Mayorca to wait for a screen and the auto pilot that failed, i requested a survey from an acredited agent by Lloyds and what he discovered rally upsets me. After 3 pages of major defaults he noticed, he stopped his survey. I was supposed to participate to ARC + 2015, but the boat is in such a state, that i will most probaly have to cancel this participation. All my team mates will lose their flight tickets for the way back and i wonder how i will gat my boat in the caribs in a month or so when all the defaults will ( i hope ) have been fixed. The boat is still under warranty, but my broker says " lagoon does not answer to me " , my wife is so upset with all those troubles since the beginig that she considers leaving me on the boat to get back home in Montreal and i wonder myself what i am going to become stuck on this boat where a lot of things are dangerous and the finish was called by the expert a " friday afternoon boat"… If you consider purchasing a boat you will use only 2 weeks a year doing some circles in the BVI waters, this might be a good boat for you, but if you consider sailing for real with your lagoon, prepare for no sleep nights until you can sell it .

Most of the problems you have described are related to the commissioning process and not to the factory itself.
As far as I know, the commissioning is done by contractors that can and may and should be chosen by your Lagoon rep who sold the boat to you and it is his duty to choose the good ones.
It is your Lagoon agent duty to keep these contractors in line with their contracts. I had problems with the electricity&electronics commissioning and my agent got the worse for that from me and took care to fix everything on the way from LsDO to the med.
If your agent left you to fight the issues alone, you should blame him.