400: Lagoon Davits

[katsumi]

Just been reading about problems with the Helia and its davits how they are unable to carry a tender at sea. Just wondering how other Lagoon owners are using your davits? I usually have done most of my passages with the tender 3.2 metre rigid inflatable with 15 HP on the davits, never thought it was an issue. Am I wrong? should I be putting the tender up on the forward decks whilst at sea? I do not recall anything in the manual about this.

[tuskie]

Leaving the tender and motor on the davits on passage doesn't seem to be a problem on a L400. Plenty of clearance so breaking following seas don't hit the dinghy or outboard leg.

Not sure how you would get the RIB and motor onto forward deck anyway.

One owner with a heavy Honda BF20 that I spoke to removed the motor for a long ocean passage and left the tender on the davits. He lashed the motor on the rear starboard deck just forward of the starboard genaker winch. He fitted pad eyes and placed a foam pad down first. You need a gantry or a couple of really strong pairs of arms to accomplish lifting that piece of machinery.

The only issue with having the RIB on the davits is chafe to the hypalon. We use carpet pads and extra tie downs to minimise movement in rough weather. Cheers

[CPT NIKOS]

i think that the best thing is to have the tender on the davist when sailing and keep the motor seperetaly in another place t

[Emerald Sea]

We have a L450 and just recent completed some passaging in rough weather. Without a doubt, the motor (ours is a BF20) must come off and be stored on deck (we have a fitted motor mount). We have left the dingy in the davits, lashed down with 2" cargo straps and secured laterally to prevent all movement, but still in moderate seas the dingy hull will get hit with water. This is not a satisfactory situation, especially in heavier seas, and in the future we will be storing the dingy on the front deck. This is easy enough to accomplish by lifting it with the gennacker/spinnaker halyard (w/o motor of course) and carefully managing it to the deck and then laying it down on a few flat fenders with a good tie down.

During this rough weather passage the Lagoon supplied webbing bridle parted and fortunately it was still supported by the cargo straps but for those hectic itchy hours we could have lost the dingy. I have since replaced the bridles with a s/s chain. In fact I have upgraded all the rigging for the davits including the blocks, shackles, etc.

I am also in the midst of designing and having built a davit arm for lifting the 50kg BF20 and, yes, it's quite heavy and awkward to take off/on with 2 persons. This davit arm will be a temporary installation, one that I can remove when not in use; I don't want to look at an ugly davit arm when enjoying my back deck view during the sundowners.

I would still keep the the dingy w/motor in the davits for local transiting when I'm clear the weather is fine, but passaging, it's off.

[cashgar]

Originally Posted by katsumi

Just been reading about problems with the Helia and its davits how they are unable to carry a tender at sea. Just wondering how other Lagoon owners are using your davits? I usually have done most of my passages with the tender 3.2 metre rigid inflatable with 15 HP on the davits, never thought it was an issue. Am I wrong? should I be putting the tender up on the forward decks whilst at sea? I do not recall anything in the manual about this.

I have a 410 did my last passage abacos to BVI with the dingy on the davits the motor 15hp was secure in the front locker but next time the dingy will be back on deck as usually.
got some heavy sea and wind 30 to 40 kn the dingy as bin lightly hit few times just didn't like it at all.

[DavefromNZ]

Hi Emerald,

I spent a lot of time figuring out our L450 attachments to get the dinghy fully up to press into to davits. I had two 1 inch stainless bars made to achieve this, nothing else worked, and the straps used to rub and fray. With the dinghy fully up and the Honda 20 rotated up two clicks, it misses the waves and cannot move. I do also put an extra strap,at each end and under the dinghy, on ocean travels in case a lifting line breaks;






Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Emerald Sea]

Dave,

I did saw your photos on an earlier post or somewhere (?) and made a mental note of them. Actually I was thinking of these when I replaced the webers with the chains however I was at Redang Island without any fab or machine shop and needed an urgent fix and had the chain and a pair of cutters handy on board. The only drawback is not getting the dingy to sit snug to the davit bars. I have had since added a set of 2" s/s ratchets delivered with HD cargo straps and use the two in unison....for coastal cruising.

I'm still going with a retrofit/removable davit frame for the o/b lift and storage that I'm presently designing and will have made at a machine yard in Thailand. And removal of the dingy for crossings.

After experiencing our boat in strong gales with the dingy and motor attached, I've became very concerned with the acceleration loads acting on the davit frames. I originally thought they'd add no more than 30% of the base weight but now believe this to be greater compounded by the motor base and/or dingy hull contacting the water. Removing only the motor reduces the self weight of the system by some 40% and certainly helps but I'm erring on the safe side and removing both for main crossings.

Steve


Steve
L450
SV Emerald Sea

[Catapault]

Old thread revival....


Dave and Steve . Can you update on how your davit system is now, what works and dosn't etc please ?

I'm in the midst of rigging our brand new Highfield 360-FCT, and getting it tight up is proving a challenge....

I have the additional issues that the FCT console creates a side load, so the center of lift is a bit stbd of the centerline of the dinghy. (otherwise it tends to tip when lowering !).

Dave: On your steel bars, they are at each end and therefore would not line up with the davits straight. Does this cause you any issues with the lines running out of the davit sheeves at angles ?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Regards

Mark.

[Emerald Sea]

Mark. We have the original Lagoon davits and the Highfield OM350. It fits in the envelope but without much spare. So I can imagine going larger creates some issues. Have you tried counterbalancing the console with having your fuel tank, battery and other apparatus on the port side?

Our davit lines exit at about 5 degrees and will chafe over time. What I do is when I notice chafe on the protective outer core of the line occurring, cut back 10-20cm of the line from the sheave/purchase end and re-knot it. In practice you have shifted the chafed area and the rubbing will begin at a new area. Eventually you will run out of line but this is more efficient and cheaper than replacing the line each time you chafe.

[aclmck]

I saw a good design recently in Singapore where the lifting bar was a t shape which attached to the bow lifting point vertically ( or nearly) also to the transom points (2 off) nearly vertical, then he picked up the lifting bar vertically preventing most of the chaff or fraying he also placed a web rachet over the top of the davits and down to the lifting bar to help prevent loss if something broke, it was all constructed from a bout 25 - 32 mm stainless and was rarely removed from the davit lines and looked ok hanging when his dinghy was in the water.

He had a consul boat and this lifting bar was simply bent over the consul, with only a little clearance, he said that he always attached it to the bow first then lowered it to hook onto the transom before stepping off the dinghy to prevent any damage from the bar hitting the consul etc, I thought it could have been left in the dinghy most of the time with a few modifications . he said he got the idea from a super yacht which craned all its tenders on and off his dinghy was an alloy base he said his mate with a glass base moved his lifting points to suit his davits and used a small bar similar to what is used in the photo above