Lagoon bulkheads

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Yeah, it more left me shaking my head.
Other designers go for long hulls, light weight, reinforced air construction to get speed
Yet the claim is that lagoon gets it from short fat hulls, heavy weight and Corian benchtops.



Push the limits?
The limits clearly are not very high on a lagoon.

I have sailed on cats that have been pushed hard (not to their limits) every time there is a bit of wind and they are decades old.
By pushed hard I mean seeing mid teens and flashes of twenties in boat speed, fire hoses on, occasional wall of green coming over cabin roof and flying hulls and these are not race boats.
Decades old, never seen bulkhead issues
But they did have properly designed and built bulkheads.

I guess it could be said their limits had been reached at times with blown sails, spat masts, deck fittings tearing out of boat, but again, main boat structure and bulkheads intact.

Owners often sail their boats to the Lagoon reefing recommendations.. having sailed a Lagoon 380 in a F7 gusting 8 in the Med with fully reefed main and 50% Genoa. With the pounding the boat was taking I hate to imagine what it would have been like with 1 reef and 75% Genoa..
We were touching 11kts most of the time.

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

... yeah it may happen if boat is near or over max load. Our is at around 40-50% loaded and there is no sign of tiredness of structure at this point...

Delamination and cracks are the final stages of failure. The airline industry uses high tech equipment to identify fatigue because it is routinely not visible to the naked eye. Prior to delamination and major cracks, how are you determining the "tiredness" in the fiberglass? How do you know how many cycles it has been through or if it is approaching it's cyclic fatigue lifetime?

[Tin Tin]

Can any one point to any factory cat made since 2000 that has actually sunk and proven to be due to cracked bulkheads as the primary cause?

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by Tin Tin

Can any one point to any factory cat made since 2000 that has actually sunk and proven to be due to cracked bulkheads as the primary cause?

Cracked bulkheads will cause a mast failure due to shroud tension issues long before you suffer a catastrophic hull failure. I think that is bad enough.

[Tin Tin]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

Cracked bulkheads will cause a mast failure due to shroud tension issues long before you suffer a catastrophic hull failure. I think that is bad enough.

Ok how many mast failures due to cracked bulkheads?. Even the amateur click bait stars who tried to rebuild a hurricane write off on the cheap did not lose their mast.

[JC Reefer]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

Delamination and cracks are the final stages of failure. The airline industry uses high tech equipment to identify fatigue because it is routinely not visible to the naked eye. Prior to delamination and major cracks, how are you determining the "tiredness" in the fiberglass? How do you know how many cycles it has been through or if it is approaching it's cyclic fatigue lifetime?

If only it were a case of tired fiberglass. I think people would feel better if it were. Not that thousands of vessels aren’t glued together… 🤦🏽*♂️

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by Tin Tin

Ok how many mast failures due to cracked bulkheads?. Even the amateur click bait stars who tried to rebuild a hurricane write off on the cheap did not lose their mast.

Would you call a mast failure the inability to maintain the correct tension on a your shrouds? Would you make passage under those conditions? That problem is what started this topic a year and a half ago.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

Delamination and cracks are the final stages of failure. The airline industry uses high tech equipment to identify fatigue because it is routinely not visible to the naked eye. Prior to delamination and major cracks, how are you determining the "tiredness" in the fiberglass? How do you know how many cycles it has been through or if it is approaching it's cyclic fatigue lifetime?

there was no mast loss due to shrouds failure as far as i know in around 5000 lagoons, lots of them with compromised bulkheads. So, yeah i dont think this is an issue. Our bulkheads are fine, hence our boat has not experienced serious stress yet. mind you boat has clocked over 40k nm of fine sailing.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Yeah, it more left me shaking my head.
Other designers go for long hulls, light weight, reinforced air construction to get speed
Yet the claim is that lagoon gets it from short fat hulls, heavy weight and Corian benchtops.



Push the limits?
The limits clearly are not very high on a lagoon.

I have sailed on cats that have been pushed hard (not to their limits) every time there is a bit of wind and they are decades old.
By pushed hard I mean seeing mid teens and flashes of twenties in boat speed, fire hoses on, occasional wall of green coming over cabin roof and flying hulls and these are not race boats.
Decades old, never seen bulkhead issues
But they did have properly designed and built bulkheads.

I guess it could be said their limits had been reached at times with blown sails, spat masts, deck fittings tearing out of boat, but again, main boat structure and bulkheads intact.

Lagoons are really fine sailing boats. VPLP architect is really good. Your idea of sailing is not compatible of what we do. We live on board, and live life during sailing, ie cooking, playing, working etc. Having reef or 2 less, is just the way we like it. Also as boatman mentioned, boat is happy and feels no stress.

There is estimate that excellent sailors can make boat go up to 40% faster than lets call it newish youtube sailor. I would like to think that I am more in that fine sailor category, and enjoy trimming sails and getting extra speed with little effort for the boat, instead of more sails and higher stress level for boat and crew.

Yeah, we enjoy sailing and our boat is in great shape after 10 years and is lagoon

[Factor]

Yep move along, nothing to see here, nothing to see, move along

[Bullshooter]

So the question going forward is:

Has Lagoon changed their manufacturing process to better strengthen the attachment of the bulkheads, in order to avoid these kinds of failures? Or are they continuing with the same process used on the boats that had these failure?

Does anyone know the answer to this?

[crayiii]

Originally Posted by Bullshooter

So the question going forward is:

Has Lagoon changed their manufacturing process to better strengthen the attachment of the bulkheads, in order to avoid these kinds of failures? Or are they continuing with the same process used on the boats that had these failure?

Does anyone know the answer to this?

The new designs have the compression post on a grid under the saloon floor. Better? I don’t know. We have the new design and have asked Lagoon several times if they will provide us with either drawings or inspection instructions and they refuse to send the drawings and have told us there isn’t anything to inspect.

[NaClyDog]

Originally Posted by crayiii

The new designs have the compression post on a grid under the saloon floor. Better? I don’t know. We have the new design and have asked Lagoon several times if they will provide us with either drawings or inspection instructions and they refuse to send the drawings and have told us there isn’t anything to inspect.

At some point, this kind of customer service will affect their bottom line.

[Bullshooter]

I am tempted to write to them and ask them if improvements to new models are being made. If I informed them that sailing forums are asking about this, and their silence would imply that the answer is not a damn thing has been changed, maybe they would respond.

But then again, I am not in the market for a boat now, so I leave that to others. I am merely curious.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

Lagoons are really fine sailing boats. VPLP architect is really good. :

Drink it up, don't waste a drop.