450: Purchasing and Commissioning

[gonzemoi]

Originally Posted by roetter

Hi Gonzemoi

Thanks for drawing my attention to the Duo water maker. That is one of the problems with the Lagoon options sheet. They do not specify exactly what item will be installed. My dealer has not been helpful in clarifying these for me, so often I just have to guess.

If you are sure that it is the Duo 100 that will be installed, then I might reconsider and go for it. Did you see that it consumes 600W at 12V but 1100W at 220V?
I saw that in the price list. Does that also mean that it produces less freshwater when running on 12 V?

What is the slow consumption mode? It uses 5A (60W) for the Duo 100. How much water does it produce in this mode?

Rolf

Rolf,
Dessalator people wrote me back regarding the production when running at 12v:

Cher Monsieur,

La production est très faiblement plus élevée en 12v.

Bien à vous

Secrétariat Dessalator
Rosyne Castino


Basically water production is slightly higher at 12v. However, my dealer told me it is more noisy when running at 12v than 220v.

Regards,

Gonzalo

[roetter]

The shower does not make it wet around the toilet. The shower floor is about 4cm (1.5 inches) lower than the rest of the wash room. You would have to shower for a long time and not press the sump pump button to flood around the toilet. The Plexiglas door is pretty tight too. You would have to take the shower head into your hand and aim it at directly at a crack to get any water through.

Rolf

[roetter]

Originally Posted by DavefromNZ

I have attached pictures of the bigger bimini we are getting. Not provided by Lagoon but my dealer seemed to find someone in France to provide it

Interesting design. Did you get a rice quote for it?

I would no mind talking to your builder for a quote on my design. Currently I am planning on a slight variation of the standard design, but use the hand rails on the sides of the salon and cockpit deck to mount it to. Having it longer fore-and-aft is definitely required. With the standard design you can tilt it back and aft using the straps, which is great. I want to keep the same feature in my design variation, just all the way to the sides of the roof top and a little longer fore-and-aft. It would require a thicker pipe for the additional size and maybe some extra bracing.

Does anyone have experience with integrating rigid or semi-flexible solar panels into the bimini?

Rolf

[gonzemoi]

Rolf,

In regards to solar on Bimini, check this photo from a lagoon 620:
What is this all about? (2) | Lagoon Inside

[Dakota450]

Originally Posted by roetter

Hi all

We are in St. Lucia - Rodney Bay - now. Crossed from Le Marin Martinique yesterday in up to 25 Kts true wind just behind the beam and about 2-3 m swell. A strong wind (probably up to 35 or 40 Kts) had gone through during the night until 9 am. So the waves were still up at noon.

Our L450 is from April 2011 and looks pretty worn already. Well, she is in charter and who knows what kind of people used her. But a lot of the stainless has rust on it. Some of the taps coverings in the bathrooms are corroded.

Shower:
The floor at the toilet does not get wet under the folding plexiglass in my experience from my shower that I took yesterday. The doors seem to be working well.

Cockpit in rain very wet:
With some wind and rain pretty much the whole cockpit gets wet. The opening to go up the bridge deck stairs let a lot in, but also it runs down the side of the cockpit deck an splashes badly inboard. I will have to come up with a solution.
Bimini:
I confirmed I will not get the factory option. Not wide enough, and just like on the test cruise, I keep hitting my head. It should be easy to have one fabricated the goes the complete width of the fly bridge. This would also keep some rain put from the cockpit stairs and keep it dryer there.

Front Salon windows wet:
The roof overhang at the front side of the salon cuts back after the maximum protrusion at about 45 degrees downward. Rain running down will stay attached to the surface and make a great waterfall inside of the open windows. If nothing else I would attach a small bead of silicone just in on the underside to make the water drip off there.

Fly bridge:
We have two not-so-much sailing ladies on board and even with the seas pretty high yet nobody go even feeling bad a little bit. The view was great. Even had to dip down for a sleeping sperm whale that we passed within 10 m. We all one it. I had to go down to electrical panel in the salon to solve a battery charging problem and started feeling the motion sickness come on within a few minutes. Up there I was fine again in no time. Everybody loves the fly bridge. We have been up there 100% of the crossing and even at night to enjoy the view in the dark and have a drink.
Rolf

Any final observations about the boat?????

[gonzemoi]

Originally Posted by DavefromNZ

I have attached pictures of the bigger bimini we are getting. Not provided by Lagoon but my dealer seemed to find someone in France to provide it

Hi Dave..I did show the pictures to my dealer in France. They had the following comments:

• It seems that with a fixed bimini you will not be able to lower your boom which may make it hard to close the lazybag..
• the fixed supports seemed to be installed near an area where the winch cables run, so you need to make sure a proper insulation work is done.

The bimini does look great though I will follow my dealer advice on this one..



Regards,


Gonzalo

[gonzemoi]

HI Rolf,

I just had a chat with tech guy at my dealer regarding the Vitron solution you mentioned earlier. He agrees a 100% with Vitron study however he claims that there is no space for the combi charger/inverter on the L450 and the solution would be more expensive.. Have you found a place where to fit the combi/charger inverter?? By the way, Masterwolt has a combi gernerator/charger/inverter...

From Mastervolt website:
the Mastervolt GPX, the first hybrid marine power system to include a generator, inverter, battery charger and generator/inverter/shore transfer system. Unlike a ‘classic’ setup, the GPX reduces volume by 40% and weight by 50%, providing you with a pure sine wave 230 V and an absolutely stable 50 Hz onboard AC power. You can even combine shore power with power from the generator and batteries.

Regards,

Gonzalo

[roetter]

Hi Gonzalo
Just sitting in Seattle airport on pour way back.
The L450 we chartered had a Victron Multi 3000 with no space problems at all. It was installed just over the wet deck inside the starboard engine compartment. There is lots of space there. The L450 is a huge boat and these inverter/chargers are not that big.

I will report more once I had a good sleep.

Rolf

[roetter]

Fixed Bimin

I agree that a feed Bimini is probably not a good idea. I climbed up the mast steps in a marina (completely quiet) and did feel uncomfortable. I did not even attempt to climb into the lazy bag.
Later I collapsed the bimini and dropped the boom all the way down to the deck. I then pulled the traveller one way and had a small preventer pulling the other way to stop the boom swinging. I also pulled the lazy bag lines tight. Now it was no problem to crawl from the boom end all the way to the mast and inspect the sail battens and the mast track cars.

So for me the bimini will be collapsible.

Rolf

[roetter]

Please excuse all the spelling errors in my previous post. I am dead tired but almost home.

[careka]

Originally Posted by roetter

Please excuse all the spelling errors in my previous post. I am dead tired but almost home.

i even do it when i am not tired, i hope they all still understand

[roetter]

The cockpit of the L450 gets really wet from three sides. This is the weakest part of the L450 we tested over the last to weeks in the Windward Islands. The reasons are:
1. The openings for the stairs going up to the fly bridge let a lot of rain into the cockpit sitting area.
2. The roof sides are close to the seats. The water runs down from the roof and clings to the underside of the roof which is sloping forward. From there it runs along the slope towards the stairs to the fly bridge. On the way there many drops don't make it and fall off. Thus you have a curtain of water hitting the flat deck next to the seat backs. The resulting splashes make it far inside the cockpit.
3. The aft of the roof top ends right over the seat back of the aft table seats and the head rest of the lounge, so they are directly in the water falling off the deck.

The only place that stays dry is the seat next to the door from the salon.
Going inside does not make sense when in the tropics as there is not enough air flow as you have to close the front windows in the salon as well as the water runs down the forward deck right through them into the salon. It is unbearably hot inside. So we ended up standing in the middle of the cockpit when under anchor until the shower stopped. Then we quickly went to the fly bridge under the bimini to enjoy the breeze.

Lagoon should have put more thought into the design details of the cockpit roof (hard bimini) to avoid some of these problems. A rail along the side of the deck should have been implemented to lead the water to one spot on each side next to the stairs. There a pipe should lead it to the deck level from where it can run off without splashing inside the cockpit.

What can be done?
The openings to the flybridge stairs can be dealt with by putting up the factory fabric covers, but it is a pain to do so when you have showers going through and in between them you want to go onto the fly bridge.
Putting up the window side covers is not an option in hot climates as it gets way too hot with the cooling breeze locked out.

To keep the aft seats dry I plan to install the solar panels over the aft of the cockpit roof. I will then add a piece of fabric between the roof and the solar panels to prevent the rain from going through that opening. All the water will be lead to the aft side corners of the roof now. See extra post on the solar panels in this threat.

The sides get more difficult. I will experiment with a plastic edge running from the aft of the cockpit deck edge sloping forward to the fly bridge stairs. There I will have to catch the water and lead it off the deck. If nothing else the splashing will be located in one spot on each side at the stairs and keep the rest of the seats dry.

Are there any existing L450 owners that have dealt with this problem? Let us know your solutions.

[roetter]

While cruising for the last two weeks on an L450 I have spent quite some time on figuring what to do with the solar panels.

I don't like them on the davits, as they obstruct the view too much when sitting in the cockpit.

I have decided to have the solar panels installed over the end of the cockpit roof. (see drawings) I am planning on 5 Kyocera KD185 panels with a total of 900W. The size of these gives me the best sizes. Not too much overhang to the aft of the deck to obstruct the view too much. Just enough extents to the side to get near the edge of the roof without creating a head clearance problem when coming from the side deck.

For the frame attachment points to the roof I plan on using the top plates of the stainless pipes holding up the roof in the corners (indicated by the two circles in the plan view of the roof top). This way no new holes are required. There are already four bolts on each pipe. The easiest would be to replace the current top plates with one that has the hinge mechanism for the frame welded to it.

For the aft vertical support I plan to run pipes down to the davits. Just a single hole in each davit pipe to pass a long bolt through will work to have a solid connection that can swivel. I hope the builder of the frame can provide a simple solution to move the aft of the frame up and down by about 300 mm to get better angles to the sun.

[roetter]

Here is a video of the lagoon 450 cockpit in the rain.

Lagoon 450 cockpit in the rain - YouTube

[monte]

wow, beautiful location Rolf. The beach and water look amazing. Pity about the rain, I hope you had some sunshine as well. Good luck with the rainproofing. I can only imagine some clears would protect the area a little bit..