450: Lagoon 450F - Refit for a Cruising Boat

[Catapault]

As I promised a few people, I'm posting up all the work we've had done to customise our 2011 450 F from base config, into our 'home' and a voyaging boat. We are not finished as yet, but as I've had a few queries, I'm posting it as work in progress, and will update more as other things are done.

<joke> WARNING: IF you are a diehard sailor, many things on this thread may offend you, starting with a television !. You've been warned... </Joke>

First, to put it in context, these modifications have been made with a view to OUR requirements and vision, pretty much as follows

- This is our HOME, full time, for several years. we do not currently own a shorebased dwelling that is our house. (Rental properties not included !). And doubt we will have one until we eventually sail back to Australia.

- Both my wife and I intermittently work from the boat, either study, hobbies, or occasional consulting. Therefore we require space to do so as office. Whilst we are on an extended sabbatical, we are "around 50 ish" and not (yet) retired. Whilst we've bailed on the rat-race, we both wish to stay somewhat current. A laptop in the salon is insufficient.

- We watch a LOT of DVD's. Very little / nil free-to-air TV, but have an extensive move and TV series collection which i've digitised. Home theatre isn't possible, but sorry to the purists, a decent TV is required !.

- We aim to make the boat both comfortable to live in, and sail well.

- Keeping the Admiral happy is a key ingredient, such as having space for her hobbies and culinary endeavours, then we can do this longer !.

- Going 'green'to some extent. Primarily to enable long stays at anchor and avoid marinas. Renewables helps that, including cooking with them (electricity). We are fairly power hungry.




Shameless Plug: To date, all this work has been done in Marmaris, Turkey by the excellent folks at "Off Shore Sailing" (Albatross Marina).
Their technical department is excellent, and the quality of the work is first rate. See "Yeola" on the forums here, he runs the place.
(I have no affiliation with them other than paying them to work on our boat).
Fair warning though, when in their care, it is easy to just keep adding 'one more job' as several other forum members can attest to !. The last couple weeks it has been the "Lagoon 450 Maintenance yard" with 4 diff ones in for some work.

Actual work in following posts, but before I start. I'd like to thank everyone who has posted ideas on Cruisers forum, or those who I've talked to directly, both in person and via Email or PM here on CF. many of these ideas are taken from posts made here, or ideas of others, some directly, and some adapted to my needs.

I hope this post in some way gives ideas back, and may assist others in future.

[Catapault]

SOLAR and the Outside

Solar Array. Built out of Stainless steel, incorporating
- 6 x Sunpower X22 360w panels,
- Lifting points for the outboard,
- sail-track for future sun-shade,
- stern light,
- Webber Q2000 BBQ,
- Table for doing fish and anything else next to BBQ,
- Gas Bottle locker with drain hose.
- Flagpole (Well, small block and line for the flag !)

Note: Gas bottle locker does not impede the dinghy area in anyway. This was carefully checked.

Panels won't arrive for a few weeks, Will update when completed.

Rest of Solar fitout is still to be done. The electrical side will be.

2 x Victron 150/100 MPPT Controller
Victron Quattro 5kw.
Victron 712 Battery monitor (shunt etc).
Victron Colour Display.

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Cockpit

In the cockpit we have added.

- Handhold as you come out of the door.
- Vertical Steel pole at the door. newer 450's have this, ours didn't.
- New Backrest and handhold on the 'couch' / stairs going up to helm.
- External Waterproof 220v power points on each side. High up to avoid getting wet, and on RCD's just in case.

So far after a couple trips, the new handholds are great, especially the couch backrest/handrail is awesome.

My wife is going to make new cushions for the 'couch' which will turn it around, using the new backrest, so the 'relax' position will look straight out the back.

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Bow

On the Bow, we've done the following.

- Changed the angle of pull for the furling line to be straight. This was done by a block mounted under the stbd dolphin seat. Works a treat. (The old way, not so much).

- Fitted a 45kg Ultra Anchor. Also fixed the bow roller so it launches (which was more the 'bow seized block when we got it). some further mods to that are planned to enable it to run better and not jam up under the crossbeam. Ultra 45 is a smidge larger than the roller is designed for.

- Fitted 3 Nylon blocks to the Chain fairlead to prevent the chain 'slamming' and bouncing around in the channel. Thanks Ole for that one !. Straight up copy.....

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Owners Hull

Apart from being where we sleep, the Owners hull is the Admirals office and sewing room / hobby area. This was in part to keep it out of the salon / cockpit, and part to ensure we both had our own areas.

It is also extra storage for everything.

Major mods.

- Converted Couch into desk space with under desk storage for plastic creates we use form "ReallyUsefullBoxes".

- Added fold down table across the hull for sewing desk. (enables material to drop behind it). Only used at anchor / harbour.

- Fire Extinguishers, Smoke Alarm, CO Alarm, Torches etc mounted.

- New shelves above Credenza. Shelves on outboard cupboard near bed. (Again, idea came from this forum !).

- Mounted LG Widescreen monitor at desk.

- Mounted clock on wall.

Pics:

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Salon

- Converted cupboard next to sink into spice cupboard with extra shelves to fit specific jars.

- Removed dishwasher and replaced with two solid drawers. (At Admirals request Demand !)

- Added nylon cutlery dividers to top draw in kitchen.

- Utensils hanging bars and hooks above kitchen counter. These use captive hooks that can't come off easily. (From Ikea) The tools themselves are generally taken down at sea and put in a draw. We find this increases the space and usability in the kitchen immensely

- Other rails for pot lid holders.

- Several Hand holds added to stairs and salon cupboards.

- Mounted 49" Curved widescreen Television on credenza. Old pop up TV and mechanism removed. Reckon this saved a chunk of weight as the mechanism was heavy.

- Mounted Fire Extiguishers, Heat Alarm

- Re-did gas lines (due), and added Propane electronic Solonoid / cutoff switch near stove.

- Added Shelf in side large cupboard next to TV.

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Port Hull - My Office

- Added shelf in Port aft cabin to take photo printer. (No photo of that yet, will add later).

- Fire extinguishers in both cabins. Ensured to get ones with full clips to retain extinguishers.

- Smoke Detector and CO2 Detector in Hull hallway.

- Mounted Dyson hand-vac in aft cabin.

I've made some major looking modifications to the Port Fwd V-Berth to turn it into my office.

- Removed Under bunk drawer unit.
- Trimmed bed top
- Added side access to under-bed storage.
- Fitted new Desk top over entire area to convert to an office. (TBA. Photo's when the top is fitted in a week or so).
- New floor hatch to access bilge area for storage.

Whilst they may look major, it would actually not be hard at all to fill in the gap, and convert it back to a double bed in future when we decide to sell it. Nothing structural has been touched.

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Other work

Some other things we have done which are less visible. PM me if anyone wants more info.

- Full engine maintenance on both engines and Genset.

- New house batteries and engine batteries. - I've gone with 6x 140AH sealed lead acid batteries as I plan to replace with Lithium in approx 1 year. Total 840AH

- Converted both SD60 winches to Electric. Now all 5 winches are Electric.

- Fitted Desalator Duo watermaker. Located under floor in Pt Fwd Cabin.

- Replaced Standing rigging. We had cracks in some of the upper terminals, and some wear shown by dye-test in others. Rather than just replace the 2 that needed it, we opted to replace all the rigging. Job was done by riggers here in Marmaris and from what I can see, they did an excellent and very professional job.


Major Jobs Outstanding

Fit Solar Panels and related electrics.
New Dinghy (leaning towards Highfield CL 360 with FCT console and Suzuki 20HP motor).
New LARGE Bimini over helm (Either soft or hardtop, still deciding).

I'm happy to take more photo's of anything specific if needed. Just PM me.

More when I think of it. Hope this helps someone !.

Regards

Mark.

[ranchero76]

Awesome! Do you mind to share approximate cost of modifications?

[mjuneau]

Also the next chance you get it be great if you could upload a walkthrough video

[mjuneau]

Great job I said it in the past what I don't understand about Lagoon is on the owner version it's not live aboard its owners version for weekends it seems there's no comfortable place to relax and unwind. On a 3 cabin owners version why do you need three bathrooms one of those bathrooms should be extra storage.

Sorry for the run-on sentence sent from my phone

[PaulinOz]

A real sailor does not need a TV that big, especially when it is bigger than mine!!!!.


Awesome job Mark, you have done very well.

[Emerald Sea]

Well done Mark!

[davedindubai]

Fantastic Mark.

Very well done. I know just how much research has gone into all this work and it's been carried out like it's done from the factory. She's a lovely boat!

I particularly like the stainless work! Thanks for all the tips and the pics, they will be useful for sure.

Dave

[Catapault]

Thanks all.

Couple points.

- I could of fitted the 55" Samsung in that space, but we decided that was actually a bit too big. The 49" fills the space nicely.

- There is a rubber stop hidden up behind it to stop the cupboard door hitting the TV. The carpenters also adjusted most of the draws and trimmed the cupboard door to make it fit better. Things move on boats and I think not being straight offended their sence of perfection !

- I'll take better photo's of The desk in the owners hull later when flash is charged. Those don't do it justice really. The carpentry looks like it was original build.,

- RE: liveaboard. I think Lagoon did a fine job,and these are tweaks to make it better to suit our purposes. Regarding space to relax, one job we havn't yet done is modify the Table in the Salon in order to make it more of a relaxation space. That will be done just as soon as we work out exactly what we want to do to it. Few options I know, but we've agreed to not start a job until we are sure how we want it.

- I'll see about a walkthrough vid when its complete. Right now we are waiting all of our 'stuff' to arrive today that actually fills all the spaces. Its been shipped up by container from Bahrain-> Athens -> Rhodos over past 2 months.

- The contact at OffShore Yachting in Marmaris is 'Yeloya' here on forums, not the way I spelt it before !

- The BBQ has had several outings already, and works great. I'm very happy with its height, and the Gas locker. Top of the railing would NOT of worked. Also this way it dosn't block the view.

Thanks for the comments.

Regards

Mark.