Motoring in Lagoon 380

[Galumay]

Hi, I am new to the Cruiser's Forum, I have been lurking reading lots of the informative threads since finding the forum.

To give some context to my question, I live in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory in Australia, so a remote, tropical paradise. I have owned boats all my life, I spent 6 years living on a cruising monohull and cruising the pacific, I have done some sailing on cats, and the last 30 years nearly all my time has been on power boats.

We have been looking for a bigger boat for about 6 months, originally looked for a comfortable 15-17m mono power boat with something like a Gardner or John Deere for economy. Did look at power cats but most have bigger motors and faster speeds than we want.

Eventually I decided to include cruising sailing cats in the mix, and after a fair bit of research decided the Lagoon 380's fit the budget & the criteria. Has to be a simple, smaller rig that wont scare my wife! Not worried about performance, not going to be racing, and if the wind is much in front of the beam I intend motoring.

Most of the use will be local coastal waters within 1-200nm of home. Typical tropical tradewind conditions, fresh SE winds for half the year and lighter NW for the other half.

Gulf of Carpentaria and Arafura sea are fairly shallow, up to 50m max and we dont get much swell, but especially in the SE season when it gets over 20k, its a pretty nasty short chop. We also get some pretty strong tidal currents and part of the skill of navigating up here is timing some of the passages carefully.

I know that if I have to chug home in a 15m monohull at 7k in those seas, its not pleasant, but given that usually it will be less than 50nm to cover, its not unbearable.

My assumption is that a Lagoon 380 with the 30hp motors will likewise be able to punch its way south into a fresh SE at 6k or so and not be too unpleasant.

The big benefit is that at least 1 direction we should have a run or a broad reach, and be able to enjoy the sailing.

So the gist of this long winded waffle is to ask if there are Lagoon 380 owners out there who have personal experience with our weather and sea conditions here that would care to share their opinion of using it in this way? A sort of motor sailing catamaran!

I should mention that one of the critical factors in favour of the Lagoon is that my wife has fallen in love with the design - something that hasnt happened in the last 6 months with any of the other boats we looked at!

[rabbi]

The 380 is a good & efficient motor cat in flat calm conditions, but I would not choose it for any nasty sea or too much wind on the nose.

Motoring against 25kn the 380 isn't a speed daemon, maybe 7kn at full throttle.

Motoring into short chop isn't exactly fun in any short cat as they tend to hobby horse and can slam. In high short chop the props can suck air from time to time. If that happens speed drops significantly.

[cal40john]

Originally Posted by rabbi

The 380 is a good & efficient motor cat in flat calm conditions, but I would not choose it for any nasty sea or too much wind on the nose.

Motoring against 25kn the 380 isn't a speed daemon, maybe 7kn at full throttle.

Motoring into short chop isn't exactly fun in any short cat as they tend to hobby horse and can slam. In high short chop the props can suck air from time to time. If that happens speed drops significantly.

How well does motor sailing upwind with just a main up work with cats or this specific cat?

My monohull experience is small tacking angles, waves aren't dead on the nose, and the sail supplements power keeping the speed up.

[Galumay]

Thanks guys, I wondered about the motor sailing upwind where the wind is not right on the nose.

Motoring into short chop is not a lot of fun in most boats! Its the relative performance I am wondering about.

[Zanshin]

While I am a monohull sailor I've skippered Lagoon 380s before, and under engine against a 1.5-2m swell and 15-20kn of wind the engines were are maximum RPM to make about 4 knots speed. Mainly it was the slamming that slowed the boat down, I might have made better headway if I "tacked" upwind under engine a bit more to avoid the slamming.

[jmh2002]

This Lagoon 400S2 owner just motored 260nm upwind. He's a helpful member on the forum and I asked him to reply in this thread too, but he must be busy for the moment. No mention of sea state in his post though.



https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3501526

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

Went from Cartagena to Linton Bay, had to motor the 260nm to the wind. Run 3 days / 2 nights on one engine Yanmar 40hp, burned 240l of diesel at 2500rpm and 5...6kn approx. 4l/h (one tank empty plus 40l reserve in jerry cans).

Would be totally impossible with electric propulsion. Even with diesel a challenge.

[Galumay]

Thanks for that Zanshin, 4k is a bit less than I would have hoped to make in those conditions! My sense is a monohull powerboat would be able to maintain hull speed in those conditions without too much discomfit.

Thats interesting jmh2002, hopefully he will let me know what the conditions were like.

[Zanshin]

I should have stated that I was at maximum recommended RPM (I can't remember the actual number), the engines could have gone higher and tghe boat faster, but I was keeping to what the charter company had written.