Manta 40 vs Lagoon 410

[wlboyer]

Anyone have experience with these 2 boats? What is your overall opinion on sail quality. We like to sail, not run the engine. We have heard that the Manta's are sluggish but how does it compare to the Lagoon? Neither one is super fast. We will be sailing the east coast and then on to the Western Caribbean and back for a total of 1 year (family of 5). Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[colemj]

For a family of 5, the Lagoon is going to have much more elbow room and load carrying capacity. Both boats will perform the same in cruising mode. I don't know how old or skilled the kids are, but the Manta will be a far easier boat to sail shorthanded and will have more "comfort" systems on board, like a washing machine, generator, A/C, etc. It also has a much larger fridge/freezer. The Lagoon will be less expensive.

What you want is a Manta with the space and load capacity of the Lagoon.

Mark

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by colemj

What you want is a Manta with the space and load capacity of the Lagoon.

Mark

That would be Antares 44i from my looking around.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Therapy

That would be Antares 44i from my looking around.

If they have the money for an Antares 44i, they could buy a Lagoon for every family member and have even more room!

Mark

[Cheechako]

just a quick observation. When I had my Lagoon 42 (TPI) and visited on a Manta 40, the Manta just didnt feel as comfortable... the cockpit felt really deep etc. I felt like a baby trying to peer out of a bathtub. I dont know , just an impression. Have you actually been on both? My Lagoon 42 would keep up pretty well to weather/close reach with a custom aluminum Perry 48 mono, and of course kick but on a beam reach or further aft. Saw 12 knots quite a few times in Carribean winds...

[colemj]

The Lagoon 42 is a completely different beast than the Lagoon 410 - in design, build quality and performance. The 42 is a much better boat in almost all aspects.

Mark

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by colemj

If they have the money for an Antares 44i, they could buy a Lagoon for every family member and have even more room!

Mark

Lagoon for under 200,000.00??

[wlboyer]

Originally Posted by colemj

If they have the money for an Antares 44i, they could buy a Lagoon for every family member and have even more room!

Mark

Lol. That's funny and true. We don't have that budget.

cb

[Captain Bill]

Keep in mind that the Manta is a stretched 36. The original design had nearly vertical sterns. They've been adding length to the sterns to finally make it a 42. In all that time not much has happened to increase the actual living space. In later years they even made the bridge deck floor thinner to increase the saloon headroom. My neighbor has one of these and recently had to have his floor reinforced to stop every thing on the bridgedeck from jumping up in the air 2 inches every time a wave hit the bottom of deck. I really looked hard at Mantas before I bought my Endeavourcat. They run about the same price but I've got a lot more boat. I don't have much experience with Lagoons. All I know is that I spent a week anchered next to a frenchman at conception Island 2 years ago. He had just brought it across the atlantic and up from the carribean. All he did was complain about the poor quality of the workmanship. Apparently lots of stuff just fell apart and the boat was less than 6 months old. Again I'm just repeating what he said, I have no personal experience with lagoons.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by colemj

The Lagoon 42 is a completely different beast than the Lagoon 410 - in design, build quality and performance. The 42 is a much better boat in almost all aspects.

Mark

Yeah I know, point was about the deep feel of the outside living space... I know "nuttin" about current Lagoon quality. The other thing I liked about the old 42 design was the huge radius where the bridgedeck faired into the hulls. If anywhere on a cat has high stress it's got to be in that area and that big radius distributes that load well.

[wlboyer]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

just a quick observation. Have you actually been on both? ...

We have only been on the Manta. However, we were on it very early on in our search when we thought we wanted a monohull. So we didn't look at it with a critical eye. We lean towards the Manta because it is a solid safe boat and not built for the charter industry (and in our budget). Our kids are 12, 9 & 5, so the "bath tub" feel of the cockpit is just fine for this mom : )

We were more curious to know how these 2 boats actually sailed loaded down with off shore equipment, gear and people. We are not sure of the load capacity of the Manta and know that the Lagoon 410 can handle the extra weight.

We will be making the trek to the east coast to compare apples to apples. I was just curious if anyone had any first hand experience. We are learning that there is no perfect boat and everyone has a different opinion!

Cheers!

[colemj]

We are cruising full time on a Manta. Everything we own is on the boat and we are grossly overloaded - way past design specs. We seem to do 50-60% of wind speed up to 8-9kts, then we reef to keep it around 8kt. For light air, we have a Doyle UPS that keeps us moving.

The Lagoon will have more elbow space and load carrying ability, and possibly a small advantage in ultimate top end speed. It will probably go upwind a bit faster due to a much larger headsail, but not point any higher than the Manta.

The Manta will go dead down wind on its white sails faster than any other similar sized boat not using a spinnaker due to the camber spar jib. We are faster DDW on our whites than we are on our UPS.

Both of them will be about equal on a reach.

Don't worry about speed. I offer this opinion: you will always be keeping whatever boat you get to 8kt, unless you are just daysailing in calmer water. It is just calmer, quieter and more livable that way. You will just have to trust me on that!

I don't know if you have been on the Lagoon yet, but it is a much larger boat than the Manta. This may be important with 3 kids. The Manta is better built and will probably have more comfort stuff (they come standard that way).

BTW, the comment from Capt. Bill above regarding the thinner floor is incorrect. The movement he describes is due to a change in manufacturing, where they no longer glassed the cabin furniture directly to the bridgedeck and instead just sat it on the cabin sole. Very stupid build decision. This was only done on the last few boats produced, so if you are looking at a Manta older than mid-2008, you are OK.

Mark

[wlboyer]

Thank you Reach!! That is precisely the information we were looking for. Does over loading the boat then make the boat unsafe or just sluggish?

We, too, will be happy to be sailing at 8-10kt. We are not looking for a racer, but needed someone to put it all in perspective.

We bookmarked your blog! Thanks again.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by colemj

BTW, the comment from Capt. Bill above regarding the thinner floor is incorrect. The movement he describes is due to a change in manufacturing, where they no longer glassed the cabin furniture directly to the bridgedeck and instead just sat it on the cabin sole. Very stupid build decision. This was only done on the last few boats produced, so if you are looking at a Manta older than mid-2008, you are OK.

Mark

The Manta I was referring to is a 2005 model. The owner told me that he had 2 inches more headroom than most Manta's because of the thinner floor. I didn't measure it my self so I'm only going by what he told me. For some reason he had the thing put in a yard and had the floor rebuilt for a lot of money. I would have thought if he could have solved the problem by simply fastening the furniture down he could have saved himself the money. Again I'm just taking the owner's word on this. He did say that there were a limited number of Manta's with this problem.

By the way the 40 foot Manta's were built by Endeavour Catamaran Corp., the same people that built my boat. Manta opened their own factory when they started building the 42. Endeavour builds very solid boats so if you are looking at a Manta 40, I'm sure you'll do well.

[Cheechako]

We were more curious to know how these 2 boats actually sailed loaded down with off shore equipment, gear and people. We are not sure of the load capacity of the Manta and know that the Lagoon 410 can handle the extra weight.
I cant help with that comparison, but the load carrying of a Cat vs a Mono is amazing. an example: when I bought my Lagoon 42 I had my Passport 47 for sale. We parked the boats together in adjacent slips with only a finger pier between them. (We had so much stuff on the Passport that the water line was down about 5 inches... we had painted the bottom paint to the top of the boot stripe and it really wasnt enough.) We took all the gear off the Passport directly to the Lagoon. The waterline on the lagoon went down about 1.5 inches.