440: lagoon 440 repair- big hole in hull

[Cheechako]

"That'll buff right out"
A guy in a FLorida yard next to me was making a Lagoon 48 six feet longer. So yeah, I guess you can do it. He cut the hulls aft of the cabin. Is that a cored hull?
I also saw a big power boat being extended to add a hot tub on the back deck. About 65 footer. Chain saw.
I'm thinking waxed plywood screwed on the outside large flat area, laminate from the inside first. When done laminate the outside. That hull looks paper thin...?

[Joli]

If you could find a sister ship to splash a mold from the repair is doable. If the boat sunk or their is other structural damage it could be very spendy.

[Olddan1943]

I may have missed this but, what caused the hole?

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "I d just like to use it for diving tours, for some 20 M a day."

To quote Alice: "It gets curiouser and curiouser...!"

Does "diving tours" mean that you are intending to set up in business? Ho, Boy! The liability risks you'd lay yourself open to if you even succeeded in getting customers! The legal requirements you'd have to meet to be legit are prolly more than you CAN meet if you are thinking you can pick up skilled labour at ten bux an hour. Regardless of WHERE you are.

TP

[SteveSadler]

If I was young, skilled, had some time and money, I would jump on it.
I'm sure you could do it yourself if you already have the skills and can follow the directions of shipwrights. Many before us have built boats from scratch and sailed the world in them. If you don't have the skills time and money,
then get a estimate from a yard that has done this work before and do the math.
Have a surveyor inspect the work in progress to sign off when it's done.
Isn't that how Fatty did it?

[boatman1]

I wouldn't pay $25K for it. The poster back on the first page who opined that "free" would be too much is not far off. Maybe paying the storage in the yard where it's sitting would procure the project for you. One assumes it's sitting in the U.S. or British Virgins? There may be another storm soon come. I'd really want the hoat under cover while doing the lamination: is that possible?

[hamburking]

Clearly, the damage is in the PORT hull. You just need to find another cat with damage only to the STARBOARD hull. Put them together and you get one cat with two good hulls.

As a bonus, you also have parts for a second cat with two holed hulls, that you can sell to some other dreamer. Or is that the boat you are buying now?

[jmschmidt]

Good advice here.

I think all these hulls today are vacuum-bagged monocoque construction. You could ultrasound the whole hull to determine the extent of the damage but at great expense and at and even greater expense if shearing and delamination are discovered.

Here's an idea...if the opposite hull is undamaged and you can find a hull off of another 440 to replace your damaged one it might actually be cheaper to replace the entire hull, or not?

But I'd go with the guys who say don't buy it.

[ranchero76]

So many stupid comments, I can't believe my eyes.

1. It's fiberglass, and fiberglass can be easily repaired. Period. Amount of work depends on amount of damage, but again, fiberglass can be easily repaired with successful result.
2. There are hundreds of thousands boats worldwide been built from scratch by owners, by logic of some members here all of them must sink immediately.
3. No boat is built to aircraft standards EVER, but even airplanes get repaired and sections replaced.
4. Wake up, people! USA is not the only country in the World! $10/hr in some parts of the World is HUGE salary for highly skilled educated worker (yes highly skilled and educated, believe it or not!)
5. There are many cases when owners extended their boats, one example in post above, there's another example of extending catamaran right in the middle by 6ft can be found on YouTube, done by unskilled owner successfully, in months, not years.
6. Will it be cheap to repair? No, even DIY. Not 10 or 20K. It entirely depends on country where repair will be done, and on amount of work done by owner. I'd say if owner is not willing to do at least 50% of work, then it's questionable if it'll worth it at the end. Can it be done within reasonable period of time? Yes, but owner needs to have talent to find right people to work on boat and owner has to be on site 100% of time, 12 hours per day, everyday. If it starts "I have full time job..." than forget about this boat and sailing world all together, keep working hard.

[Elie]

Originally Posted by florentin

hi,

thanks for the answer.
For now I was concerned if technically it could be done,
resulting in a safe and proper boat to sail.
Considering there is no extensive damage beyond what one can see, how many work hours would you estimate (to do a rough job)?

regards,

Flo

Yes it can be done. If you do it yourself , take your time et plan acordingly, and you will be successfull. After all, its fiberglass and it can be fixed without much loss of integrity. I hate the offhand negative advices that do not consider your abilities or your financial capacity. Where I would agree is that if you hire a marina to do the job, it might not be economically justifiable. Un less you sign a very detailled contract, for a fixed price, all inclusive that make sense financially.

[DotDun]

If you could find who has the factory molds and get them to layup that section, it could be done fairly reasonably. Paying someone to make a mold for that would be expensive, I would think.

The problem with a project like this is if you are paying a daily rate at the yard once you buy it, that could bankrupt the project.

[DerekKelsall]

Originally Posted by florentin

hi,

I intend to buy a damaged lagoon 440(see pictures).
I need some opinions, if possible qualified.
-what method to repair the hull?
- repairing such a vast area of the hull, is it sound, would it be safe, as solid as before?

regards,

FloAttachment 164811

Attachment 164812

Hi,

I entirely disagree with most of the negative comment.

A small high speed ferry to my design ran onto a v rocky shore, tearing out the whole bottom of one hull, mostly as she was towed off. She is back in service. GRP is a lot easier to repair than one might expect. To replace the structure would require taking out all interior surrounding the hole and it might be a challenge to get a perfect result. You need the right man on the job, who has actually done hands on composite work. Is she sandwich? What core?

Happy boating, Derek.

[44'cruisingcat]

The hole can definitely be repaired. In fact if that's the only damage you'd be getting a bargain. I've rebuilt a boat with much worse damage.

Almost as important as the labour costs will be having a access to a good shed at a reasonable price.

The real question is how much other damage has occurred. Was the boat flooded? If so it's a huge job. If the engines, cabinetry, wiring etc have been underwater that would increase the scope of work tenfold.

[fatherchronica]

Of course it can be done, a professional could make it where all but the most snoopy meticulous surveyor would find it. For me a big question is how did it occur. If it was on the hard and was struck by say a truck as opposed to falling from jacks it could be a relatively easy repair. As to whether that part of the hull be as strong I believe it would be. I bought a boat in a yard that had partially sunk in it's slip and repaired it, no structural damage, and sold it 5 years later for over 3 times what I put into it. Until they invent Boatfax, no one will know.

[contrail]

In the real world, a badly damaged boat that has been properly repaired, with records, pics, and such, can certainly pass survey, not now but also in the future. The longer the owner keeps it, in other words, the further in the past the damage was done and the more miles successfully sold, the less this damage will affect a future sale. And insurers will insure it, if the job has been done properly.

What will screw things up is a poorly done job, by you or paid workers. Yes, in parts of the Caribbean, you might find workers at $10 per hour, but there are places where you can pay $100 for poorly qualified ones. So, be careful, no matter where you are or how much they charge.

I certainly agree that the survey or inspection must be done very carefully, and that there may be damage a long way from the hole, depending upon how the hole happened. And, if any or all of the boat was flooded, that opens another can of worms. So far, the OP has not answered either of these questions, and the whole things probably hinges on the answers.