400: Lagoon 400

[peterp]

Hello Hanafe and Paul, I was fortunate enough to have a first class fabricator with plenty of experience and patience particularly when working with the crane. Paul, he used stainless steel screws as a fixing and the handle is stainless steel, you have a valid point of the effect of dissimilar metals fortunately I am well aware of this as it is a issue in the aviation industry which I have many years of experience in. With respect to the core issue I am very confident that was done however I will double check, Hanafe uses the windlass as a step, one has no other choice, I did too what a pain, Hanafe be carefull your foot doesn’t slip on a wet day, as Hanafe says one does have to have access to the coach roof when for example you have dropped the main and you want to pack it in the sail bag and what if the traveller develops a problem, unfortunately the coach roof is just that bit too high to comfortably climb up on. Regards Peter

[impi]

Originally Posted by hanafe

Impi,

One of my battery chargers broke down. The dealer says it needs to be replaced and quoted around 800,- US Dollar. Has anyone experience on that? A charger should be able to be repaired?
Cheers
HanaFe

Hi Hanafe
My lagoon came out with a dolphin 80 battery charger - I read the manual and then checked the settings on the charger when the boat arrived in Cape Town. The 'float settings' had been incorrectly selected by the factory which according to my electrician could have caused failure to the charger and/or the batteries (?). you may want to look into that but Im not very technical on how these settings affect the system.

[hanafe]

Thanks Impi,
I will check right away today. Hope I find out. I am not very technical either.
In the meantime I had contact with the manufacturer of the charger and he informed me that the warranty is 3 years and they can repair anytime if I sent the unit back to them.
Remember, my dealer said it needs to be replaced and made a quote accordingly. I re-checked the quote by the way. All in all it would be a 1000 USD instead of the 800 I mentioned.
HanaFe

[Garold]

Peter, you are so right about stepping on the windlass and slipping. It looks like a future accident zone to me too. Maybe Hanafe is more agile than the rest of us. I think that some kind of step is great idea.

As for all those instructions about not going on the roof.........pah! Since when did any Beneteau mainsail put itself away and Zip itself in? And anyway, the wife seems to manage just fine up there. Her fat husband is more of hazard though!!

The extra handles on the stern look really handy. Interestingly, we are always short of somewhere to tie the fender on the back quarters since when docking we always have large fenders on each of those positions. Your handles would work just fine.

Cheers

Garold

[Garold]

I visited the boat today for a flying visit to run up engines and check ropes etc.

And made an interesting observation regarding the discussion about smelly heads. And my reading that suggested it had something to do with small remnants of human waste left in the system being the cause.

Well, to scupper that suggestion..........

I started the engines after a period of three weeks and guess what? There was an eggy smell in the cockpit. It looks like the water that had sat in the engine exhausts for three weeks had gone foul. The smell soon disappeared, but was clearly evident.

So maybe seawater just smells if confined in pipes for few weeks.

Cheers

Garold

[hanafe]

Raymarine

Has anybody trouble with the Raymarine C120W on his L 400? We are still loosing the correct heading again and again. The authorized dealer in HKG and the service center in Australia still has no idea why it happens. The COG is luckily correct all the time. It seems to be a fluxgate problem. What is your experience with the C120W?
Any constructive comment, also from non L 400 owners would be appreciated.
HanaFe

[paulrack]

Hanafe, not sure what the problem is, on my monohull I had a problem with my C80 losing contact and eventually it was traced to an earth lead that was not great. It took forever to find the problem however.

[Lucky Larry]

Hanafe,

Sorry, no help here other then to say it's not a problem on ours. We ordered ours without the chart plotter and had the Lagoon dealer work with the Raymarine rep to install the C120W, hand held remote, and Sirus WX receiver. We've had no problems with heading hold.

[Garold]

Good luck Hanafe.

After 2 years of wrestling with Raymarine's random performance on our Lagoon 380, we decided to switch to Garmin electronics on our Lagoon 400.

So far so good. But we do have a few OEM Raymarine bits and Raymarine auto pilot so I do hope that Garmin and Raymarine software keeps up the working relationship.

Cheers

Garold

[peterp]

Hello Hanafe, I updated from the C120's to the E120's touch screen's bit early yet for me but no problems so far. I do hope you can source the problem nothing worse than equipment that is troublesome. Re Garold's changover to Garmin, interestingly Garmin is the market leader in the world's light aircraft fleet. Regards Peter

[hanafe]

One more thing

We are down to the last 3 items of our long long long teething problem list. One I mentioned before is the bizarre behavior of the fluxgate, another one is that the saloon window front starport side is making an awfull quiecking noise when rolling sideways. Does anybody experience this as well? My dealer is still waiting for instruction from Lagoon how to remove and reclue the window.
The third thing on the remaining list, is the replacement of the ice maker with a different model as the installed one never worked and no service is available in HKG.
I think we now can say that she is better than NEW.

Cheers
HanaFe

[Raleigh]

I have for many years flushed my heads with salt water while cruising and flushed heavilly with fresh water before leaving boat for extended periods.

The small particles that get under the upper lip of the head where the water is introduced to the bowl will begin to smell if left un-flushed with fresh water.

An easy solution for the Lagoon 400 is to plumb the sink with a valve that will allow you to do your end of trip fresh water flush -- by allowing the sink/fresh water drain to enter the head intake hose.

This can be done with two tee connectors and one shut off valve.

I have also had back flow from the discharge hose as described by Hannefe. This has happened for me, only on the owners side. I intend to replace the joker valve on this head and hope that this will fix the problem.

Originally Posted by Garold

Hanafe

Just coincidentally I was reading an article about smelly toilets in an old Practical Boat Owner this morning and the content was relevant to your idea.

The writer did a small experiment to test if seawater really does break down under certain conditions and produce the smelly hydrogen sulphide.

He stored seawater in number of plastic bottles. Some were dark plastic and some clear (since there is a suggestion that the smell is more likely to come when the light can get to the water through clear pipes). He also stored some for a day, a week and longer. He also put some in his engine compartment to add constant heating up.

Interestingly, every bottle that he opened, whatever he did to them, was smell-free. Surprising eh?

He then speculated about why he has smells. And his supposition is that the smell is from the smallest particles of human waste that just stays in the system maybe at pipe joins or in the gap near rubber washers etc. He suggests that they, mixed with sea water, combine to make the smells (over time). He said that on the heads that are used regularly, he doesn't experience the smells, and when leaving for any protracted period without use, it is important to flush the toilets as much as possible to clear any waste.

My thoughts are that maybe Hanafe, you have part of the answer with your extra valve on the outlet side. However, it still doesn't make sense to me that the smell only comes when the toilet is flushed after several days without use, because then the fresh water is introduced from the rinse side. But the smell is coming from the dirty side, shich is supposed to be flowing away from the toilet. Puzzling.

Looks like the smelly marine toilet is still one of the great unsolved mysteries in my life.

Cheers guys

Garold

[Raleigh]

Originally Posted by hanafe

One more thing


We are down to the last 3 items of our long long long teething problem list. One I mentioned before is the bizarre behavior of the fluxgate, another one is that the saloon window front starport side is making an awfull quiecking noise when rolling sideways. Does anybody experience this as well? My dealer is still waiting for instruction from Lagoon how to remove and reclue the window.
The third thing on the remaining list, is the replacement of the ice maker with a different model as the installed one never worked and no service is available in HKG.
I think we now can say that she is better than NEW.

Cheers
HanaFe

Squeeking sounds!!!

I too have squeeking sounds in a rolling sea. A friend who is a builder seems to think that it is the junction between the front glass and the roof of the boat. A lagoon dealer (not CatCO) indicated that ithe sounds are part of owning a cat.

[hanafe]

Thanks Raleigh, I guess this Lagoon dealer is completly wrong. We have one window squeeking, all others are fine, which means also catamarans can be build properly.
I also think it is the junction between the front glass and the roof of the boat. So far I did not hear anything back from my dealer as usual.

For all an update on the broken battery charger.
It is repaired now. The problem was caused by a short circuit in the power supply from the generator to the charger. To avoid happening again the manufacturer of the charger recommends to shutt off the circuit breaker of the charger while starting or stopping the generator.

I m not on the boat in the moment. Does anyone know where the circuit breaker for the charger is installed? Hopefully easy to reach. Or is it good enough to make sure the charger is switched off at the control panel?

HanaFe

[paulrack]

I do not believe that sqeaks come with owning a cat. I have no squeaks or creaks while sailing? All cats will flex, if they dont they will crack, but if built carefully you should not hear squeaks (much like a car)