This thread seems to have taken a different path, but I wanted to comment on my experience with a Lagoon 52
I chartered the 6
cabin layout last month in the
BVI for 2 weeks. My brother chartered the Lagoon 450 (I have also chartered the 450 last year), so I have some performance information between the two.
First let me provide some resume details. I have been sailing since I was 3 years old. Primarily on lakes and on monohulls from 21 to 46 Ft. My Charter experience has been primarily on Multihulls. I have chartered a 2003
Leopard 47, a
Lagoon 420, a Lagoon 450, a FP Salina 48, and the Lagoon 520. All charters we more than 10 days.
My goal is to move to a Cat and sail around the world so I have been chartering many types to see what I like. I was really looking forward to the 52 as I think the 560 is too big especially given much of the feedback on this site.
Back to the 52. There was a lot to like about the
boat, but there was also a lot not to like. Performance wise the 450 ran circles around us. My brother and I have the exact sailing resume. So you can claim not
racing, this or that, but we are competitive with equal experience and I could not keep up with the 450. He was in the 3
cabin version, I in the 6 cabin of the 52, but this was not even close.
One thing I noticed on the 52 is the way the main is setup, it is much slower on the starboard tack. The only thing I can think of that would cause this is the way the main is sheeted. It tends to move the boom way further port on this tack. The
boat sailed 2 to 3 Knots slower to windward on this tack. No matter what I did, I couldn't get both tacks to show the same progress. (we would do 5knots on starboard and 7 to 8 on port with no changes to any line and trying to hold same degree off wind, roughly 50 degrees). I tried moving the traveler more to starboard, but even if I have the traveler 100% to starboard it didn't move the foot of the boom much further that way. Not a good setup in my opinion.
The upper driving station was a big hit, except for actually driving from there. The back support for long watches at the
wheel was horrible. That said we
solved the problem by moving the back
cushions all the way back to the railing and attached them there. Then just laid out across the whole pad. This was very comfortable. The reality is you don't have to sit at the
wheel. If you had too, this wouldn't
work out too well as there is no support from the cushion velcro'd to this space. The solution here would be one of those back rests connected to a solid pole that could be moved back or forward so the rest could support you if you were facing forward or backward (The
Leopard 47 we chartered had this on the driving station).
The self tacking Jib, while a nice thought didn't
work well. It was next to impossible to get the entire sail powered up. The top 3rd of the sail was generally luffing in the wind. The stoppers would take a beating on each tack, so much so, they were jammed and you could not move them. I had the charter company unjam them once for me and set the blocks out as wide as they would go. This was better as I could manage sail angles with another line and the amidships cleat.
I was looking forward to turn the wheel sailing, but given the issues, I had to constantly retune on each tack to not be so embarrassed by my brother's 450, but it didn't matter what I did, he kicked my ass to every stop.
The
compression post in the
Saloon was not an issue for me. I have seen some other designs by other manufactures that did this better, but not a big deal for me. The bigger issue was lack of
storage in the 6 stateroom version. There are no usable lazaretes in the back of the boat. There was 1, but it was used with
electrical lines and other
cleaning supplies. We ended up using the crews quarters in the front to hold all the dive
gear and other items.
The state rooms were ok, but the two aft staterooms did not have blinds over the doors, making it easy to see in those at night. We did rig some covers, but one would think Lagoon would have figured these would need to be covered to provide privacy and shade out the light if one wanted to sleep in.
The watermarked was located in the amidships stateroom on the starboard side of the boat. It was so difficult to get to this device it made it impossible to switch filling both
water tanks. This was only an issue because the
watermaker had an issue and was popping the breaker that it shared with the AC. We were able to keep things going, but sometimes things were not working out so we used
water out of the second tank. The
watermaker was throwing an error, but I couldn't get details on the error. We did manage to get water made and never ran out, but took some coordination with AC to make that happen. The breaker for this was in the front of the boat with the Genset. A fan was affixed in front of the breaker and ran constantly, so I am guessing this is a problem. Not sure why a fan would be in that room since there are fans for when the genset is running.
The other big issue is there are no finger holes in floor boards, so when you need to get to a seacock or change
toilet to flow to
holding tank or
overboard, you have to use a suction cup to get the boards up. In an
emergency situation I guess the floor boards would be floating, if not, it would be very difficult to get them up to see what the problem is.
Some people have mentioned the height of the boom, so I thought I would mention that the
bimini has rigid sections for walking on, so getting up there to fix issues with reefing lines, etch was not too big an issue. I would not like to do that in 40knts of wind in big seas, but it is possible, just way more risky. My suggestion is reef soon or drop the main if you see
weather coming. We did hit some squals that took us to 35knts of breeze and reefed in that wind without any issues.
As far as a party platform at
anchor, the boat rocked. All had a great time only the sailors were a little disappointed with the performance.
I don't think I would buy one of these. Leaning towards a 450 now. I am 6'4" which minimizes my options for
headroom.
That's all I can think of for now. Let me know if you have questions