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Old 18-01-2007, 07:31   #376
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QR great posts.

All the visitors to this site should carefully read Intentional Drifter’s publishable study regarding performance and catamaran characteristics in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers on another thread.

Multi-hull manufacturers have used myth and hyperbole to sell catamarans for two or three decades.

Ultimately, for the same cost, wouldn’t you rather cruise in comfort and semi-luxury if you only had to give-up a little speed. This appears to be generally true in the real world.

Cruisers spend their hard earned money to buy a fast catamaran load up all the comforts of home and wonder why they are sailing right along with the mono-hulls.

I understand the cognitive dissidence and financial bias of some who post here, but reality is reality. Please use Intentional Drifters approach if you wish to dispute this. Remember we are talking about long-term cruisers here.

Fast catamaran = catamaran not bound by traditional displacement hull theory. She can readily sail right through her own bow wave and beyond.

Light catamaran = fast, non-displacement type catamaran

Light catamaran + cruising family, gear and supplies = Heavy catamaran

Light catamaran made heavy catamaran = Deceased SA/D, increased wetted surface, increased hull beam/length due to immersion, decreased bridge deck clearance, decreased reserve buoyancy…

Heavy catamaran = displacement hull type performance.

Heavy catamaran designed to be heavy = better than heavy catamaran designed to be light.


So, IF YOUR GOAL IS CRUISING IN COMFORT not racing, why not just start with a comfortable, beautiful catamaran like the L420 that is designed to accommodate a large payload in the first place?

These types of issues do not even touch upon the advantages of the hybrid system.

-John
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Old 18-01-2007, 08:46   #377
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Just read this thread from scratch......... - I am kinda puzzled about what folk are getting so hot and bothered about...........


FWIW Initially I thought these Lagoons were butt ugly, but they are starting to grow on me They have a certain brutality about them


They are only being built because the Charter Market demands it - for that sort of cruising most folk do not really give a cr#p whether a vessel is as light / fast as she could be - they want comfort which equals big.......as long as she matches the monos (and on a good day maybe goes a bit faster) then IMO they have built a boat to meet these specs and are onto a winner. Anything extra is just a bonus.

I presume that the other models in teh range have not all fallen apart and as they are made by Beneteau this would give me a certain degree of comfort that they will get things right enough (eventually) and that build quality will be acceptable, within a certain limit.


If I had the cash spare (or at all ) and was looking to cruise the Caribbean or the Med for extended periods then I would love one. (and this from a bloke who has something firmly in traditional (old fashioned? ) MAB (Manky Auld Boat) Territory. It's horses for courses, not everyone needs or indeed wants a boat capable of rounding the horn, at 20 knots - it don't make one better than the other for all occassions.
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Old 18-01-2007, 15:27   #378
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So, IF YOUR GOAL IS CRUISING IN COMFORT not racing, why not just start with a comfortable, beautiful catamaran like the L420 that is designed to accommodate a large payload in the first place?

yes but i believe that the point of the discussion was the laggoon appeared to be starting out with the large payload sans cruising gear

Light catamaran + cruising family, gear and supplies = Heavy catamaran

this depends if you buy a light 35ft cat and chuck your family on it plus all the mod cons this may be true but you should have bought a light 42 ft cat.

while living in the remote wilds of cape york we met a cruising family on a wilderness 1320 with everything on board they reckoned the only problem they had was slowing down,
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Old 18-01-2007, 15:36   #379
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as for a little speed well if you sacrifice say 2 knots for a 24 hour sail to the next anchorage you have lost 48 nautical miles if you cruise at 8 knots you have to sail an extra 6 hours to make up the distance, now if you are in a hurry because of bad weather i dont need to tell you how unpopular you are with the wife when she has to sail in the nasty stuff
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Old 18-01-2007, 16:08   #380
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It seems that John POTA seems to believe that I am fixated on the difference between racing and cruising cat's, which is not so.

Racing cat's to me being a vessel without at least double berth's, full headroom, a proper head and shower, a decent galley, and refrigeration, and a comfortable lounge area.

Cruising cat's would have all of the above, and if they can have a reasonable payload, good sail area for light air performance, a good bruce number and be lightly constructed, yet strong, well even better.

What I am fixated on is that a lot, not all production cat builder's that are building to a $$$ value , can't manage to produce a cruising cat using lightweight building techniques, therefore they cannot possibly be as POTA say's........

Originally Posted by planetoftheapes
Let's be clear about things, the Lagoon L420 is the lightest, fastest most comfortable catamaran ever designed and she also has the greatest range under power not to mention absolute beauty.
Only a fool would sail any other cat.
End of story
Yes, this is God's truth, only a fool would sail any other cat.

I see that we have established that this is not the case, yet the statement has not been retracted

Cruisers spend their hard earned money to buy a fast catamaran load up all the comforts of home and wonder why they are sailing right along with the mono-hulls.

Simply not true in a lot of cases, there are plenty of liveabord cruisers in the southern hemispere at least , who have 42 ish ft cat's that continually have faster passage times than the equivelant length loaded, cruising mono .

Most understand the concept's of design and power to weight and either carry less gear on shorter hull's 38-42, or carry what they want within reason on longer hulls, understanding that the reason they got a multi in the first place, was to sail faster than mono passage times, and to be able to at least make an attempt at avoiding bad weather.

Most of these vessel's would have , contrary to the belief of some here, multiple Queen size berth's, multiple shower/toilet's, more refrigeration than the Lagoon, more than enough power to run all the toy's, comprehensive galley's and comfortable lounging areas.

Two of these vessel's have won the Brisbane to Gladstone Multihull Race on handicap, and only a couple of hours off of Line Honour's.

They don't have that 3000kg payload though, but they are succesfull and comfortable livaeaboard boat's.

Multi-hull manufacturers have used myth and hyperbole to sell catamarans for two or three decades.

Probably should make that some Multi-hull manufacturer's


Sure there are a lot that will sail no faster than the equivilent Mono, but all of these would have made no real attempt at weight saving as weight saving cost's money. [ see Newick's comment below]


I have always said that a cruising cat can be built to accomadate carryng extra payload [if you really need to] at the cost of performance,by using lightweigt building techniques, which as demonstrated to some degree in post no 368.

In the Lagoon's example it is my belief that it is partially the Veritas and Lloyd's survey requirement's that add's the excessive weight to this structure.

My argument has always been that Lagoon seem to have gone against the rules and thought's of every multihull designer of merit in the world and produced something that appears to have not made a realistic attempt at weight saving, in other areas.

Interesting to note that no one has yet to comment on the furniture comment.
Is this close to the truth ?


I also see that no one has really adressed any of the comment's made by designers in post no 319.

Dick Newick, multihull designer for fifty years is famous for saying "You can have two of three factors in a multihull - speed, comfort, and economy. You cannot have all three."

Lagoon, and other's seem to think you can

It is well known throughout the multihull community that weight is the enemy of this style of vessel, yet lagoon, and others seem to ignore the rule.

Is this because they believe they have designed a better boat.

Probably not, but it would seem that is what a portion of the market want's, and if they are making sales and the owner's perception is that they are on a good thing , well I suppose that's great for them.

L e n g t h … is good!
And so is minimalism


This is simply a recipe to get a well performing boat, it is not rocket science and in no way meant to indicate that we should all be sailing in 54 ft cat's with no interior, but maybe it is meant to point out that

Short... is bad!
if combined with excessiveness

I am still yet to get an explanation from anyone as to how that can be a good thing for a multihull.

Dave
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Old 18-01-2007, 21:44   #381
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I shouldn't need to say this...

Originally Posted by planetoftheapes reposted by Catmando (again)
Let's be clear about things, the Lagoon L420 is the lightest, fastest most comfortable catamaran ever designed and she also has the greatest range under power not to mention absolute beauty.
Only a fool would sail any other cat.
End of story
Yes, this is God's truth, only a fool would sail any other cat.


Do I really need to point out that this was said in jest.
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Old 18-01-2007, 22:22   #382
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After looking at post 323 and 327, I would have thought not.

But for the sake of the discussion, I will accept it as so, if it makes you feel better.

Dave.
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Old 19-01-2007, 04:03   #383
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Originally Posted by cat man do
if it makes you feel better.
Ahhh - condescension. Good one Dave. Showing your colours again.

Quote:
Short... is bad!
if combined with excessiveness
I am still yet to get an explanation from anyone as to how that can be a good thing for a multihull.

Why on Earth are you even asking this question here. The Lagoon 420 is not short and excessive. It is the right boat for 110 people which is evidence enough that this statement/question is irelavent.

Dave - if it is your intention to get some publicity for Ozzy lightweight cat builders/designers, I think you're doing your peers a terrible diservice. All I've learned from this thread is that Ozzy designers/builders are rude, arrogant, condescending and don't listen to potential customers. I really hope you are not representitive of the industry in Australia.
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Old 19-01-2007, 06:13   #384
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Time to Change the Subject

The weight debate has become a bit tiresome. Can't we drop it for a while? Both parties have got a point and if they can't see the other point of view then the could at least agree to differ. Let's wait until the polars are published. Lagoon say they expect to have them available soon.

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Old 19-01-2007, 09:09   #385
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Yes, indeed lets talk about Nick's latest news letter. Not much new, but if you read between the lines you can pick up a few scraps of info. Like hull five waiting on a part before heading to the BVI. This would seem to indicate that any higher hull # might also need that part, circuit board, or software to be completed. In this letter, Nick did not mention much about hulls 7, 8, 9, or 10? It seems like they might be in another "on hold" mode.

This is also the first time that Lagoon has accually got specific and told us about some of their system problems, other than the early starting of the genset on throttle up. This openness on their part is a step in the right direction.

The new "Electric Motors" file was also somewhat of a rehash of old data, and it gave us very little about re-gen data. One thing I did notice, is that they list the motors as now being 10Kw instead of 8kw. I thought the 8Kw motor was rated around 10 HP, does this mean that a 10Kw motor would be around 12 HP?

They also show the 72V to 12V DC battery chargers the same as on the Annapolis Boat Show cat, 2 x 25 amp units running in parallel. As this amperage (50) is quite low, and will probably have to run much of the time just to supply my 2 fridges, and 1 freezer. This means that an inverter installed off the house batteries (ie. 12V DC to 110V AC) will not work. I have been looking at 72V to 110V AC inverters because of this bottleneck between the motor batteries and the house batteries. ExelTech makes a Series MX pure sine wave inverter that will invert our 72V DC (Motor battery packs) to 110V AC, and is upgradable. The units come with however many 1000Watt moduals you want to add. In my case I want a 4000 Watt system, so they will link 4- 1000 W moduals together to give me a 4000 Watt unit. Cost seem to be about $1400 per 1000W modual.

This inverter will allow me to run all of my AC appliances, including an air conditioner and hot water heater, without having to start the genset. Away from shorepower, I will leave the 5 position switch in the #5 mode all the time, as all I want the genset to do is come on when the motor batts are down 40%. I do not want the genset to come on whenever someone just wants to take a shower or make some microwave popcorn. With a simple A-B lockout switch I can control which source feeds my AC panel, inverter on one leg, and the genset/shorepower on the other. This way the inverter is isolated, and can never feed a circuit that is using shorepower or the genset. If anyone is interested, I can sent an electrical schematic flowchart of the system to you directly, or maybe I could upload it to the forum.

I still think Lagoon needs to hold some sort of training session for the new 420 system, that would emphasize basic troubleshooting and maintenance issues of the system, and make it availabe to owners that are so inclined.

Fair Sailing _(\_
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Old 19-01-2007, 09:41   #386
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Lagon Newsletter

Hi Quiet Riot (cool name by the way - A great oxymoron)

I'm impressed that Lagoon have kept to their word and issued three newsletters to 'owners' at weekly intervals as promised. Some interesting details and photos. I expect the newsletters to peter out at some stage, but it's nice to have some information (as opposed to none).

Your thoughts on the electrics are interesting. The bottleneck you've identified between the propulsion banks and house bank presents a challenge. I'd like to see you electrical schematic.

Are you going for the factory fitted air con? It seemed over-priced and over specified to me. I'm thinking of fitting either a cheap multi-split system or an elegant new design from the Far East.

Training from Lagoon would be good, but I can't see it happening.

Chris
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Old 19-01-2007, 09:48   #387
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My apologies

I apologize to this board. This is excessive. I will not respond to anymore of Dave‘s posts on this thread. Dave, I would be happy to continue this elsewhere, but we need to clarify exactly what we are debating.

[Cat man do - My argument has always been that Lagoon seem to have gone against the rules and thought's of every multihull designer of merit in the world and produced something that appears to have not made a realistic attempt at weight saving, in other areas.]

So in other words you are saying the L420 is so wonderful that you just can’t believe it is true? Outstanding!

So Marc Van Peteghem / Vincent Lauriot Prévost are not designers of “merit”?

You have said it repeatedly yourself, you can have only two of the following: speed, comfort or economy.

The Lagoon 420 is more in the comfort and economy (for her accommodations) side of this. What is your problem with this?


The point I argue:

If you have sailed to remote locations, with your family (especially kids because you want to be safe) and friends, it is very, very hard not to pile equipment and supplies onto your boat. I could not believe how much stuff I loaded into a truck when I returned from Mexico and sold my boat. Maybe that’s just me and my family.

You constantly debate with yourself, well, I could leave this behind but what if…

It is often said that cruising is fixing boats in exotic locations. You need spares.

Be honest with yourself about how much weight you will carry or your expensive lightweight cat MAY, MIGHT, COULD end up a dog. Yes, I could buy a bigger light cat. This is not realistic in most of our situations for a varity of reasons.

Yes I could sail faster with a minimalist attitude but we don’t want to live like this.

Is Dave’s point that I can take my wife, three kids, two friends, gear, enough supplies to cross the Pacific, everything on board for long-term and long-range cruising and blaze away at 12 knots on a fusion 40?

This I doubt. It may be true, but I have doubts. Let’s see the data. Let’s see polars for the Lagoon 420 carrying 7000lbs and the Fusion 40 carrying 7000lbs.

If it was me, my family and friends and all our stuff, she would likely be floating below her marks and acting more like a mono-hull. This is what the trend in the ARC data supports.

Dave could you build me a Gunboat 66 for the price of L420 because I would gladly trade?
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Old 19-01-2007, 11:10   #388
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Chris,

I will e-mail you the electrical schematic, and a pic of the isolation switch.

I did not get the factory air, as I thought $28,000 seemed a bit over priced. Our boat will be in the charter trade, and their is no way I would ever have 5 seperate air systems on board. Is would be a maintenance nightmare. I read a recent survey that stated that AC breaks down about 15 % of the time, with 5 of them this would seem to indicate that one or more will be down 75% of the time. No thanks! Not in the charter business. As the standard boat is set up, any 110 V AC current has to be created by the genset when away from the dock, so the genset would be running almost constantly, and with the air on the genset will have to run all the time. If I know some charterers this will mean that the genset could run 24/7, not good! I intend to install just 1 unit in the salon area, a custom 9000 BTU unit that draws less than 7 amps (it cycles on and off) and is built by Avi-Air out of Miami. The unit they demoed for me had been specifically designed to run off of an inverter rather than a genset. It will probably set me back about $1600 with circulating pump and all. I don't intend to keep the boat at 72 degrees, but the main thing is that it will not only cool us down a bit, but will also dehumidify the cabin air at night. On a fully charged motor battery bank the air will not even use enough current to kick the genset on at a 20 DOD setting for 8 hours!

Fair Sailing _(\_
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Old 19-01-2007, 14:34   #389
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ess105
Ahhh - condescension. Good one Dave. Showing your colours again.


Why on Earth are you even asking this question here. The Lagoon 420 is not short and excessive. It is the right boat for 110 people which is evidence enough that this statement/question is irelavent.

Dave - if it is your intention to get some publicity for Ozzy lightweight cat builders/designers, I think you're doing your peers a terrible diservice. All I've learned from this thread is that Ozzy designers/builders are rude, arrogant, condescending and don't listen to potential customers. I really hope you are not representitive of the industry in Australia.
Only showing the same colours as you ess105, on almost every post you have made about me, You must be a good teacher.

The best you can do is pick one small snippet from a post and then kick me in the gut's for it.

I'm thick skinned and that's OK if that's the bully boy tactics that you choose to use

I doubt that you have actually answered one question that I have asked, and a lot of post's have gone not far from accusing me and other builder's and designers of being lier's.

Your post's and POTA's I felt were a touch out of hand and added nothing constuctive to the discussion, but it is good to see that POTA[John] has appologized and changed the direction af his post's.

It's a shame you cant do the same.


POTA, we all have our mind's made up as to how it work's out there.
I'm only talking from the experience's I've had and witnessed.

I can go around in circles here for month's and probably not get any closer to showing people that short and heavy is not a good multihull trait, as have countless designers and builders over the year's.

But what would we know, the customer is alway's right, and it is for this reason that I got out of the game so as I could sleep well at night knowing that at least anything I was involved in, was a fast, fun ,safe boat, like mutihull's were intended to be.

That's it for me on this thread.

Have fun on the water

Dave
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Old 19-01-2007, 15:09   #390
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QuietRiot. Did you consider the option of 72V DC aircon lowering your overall demand for AC inversion?
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