Dear Lagoon 450’s owners,
At Lagoon, quality and safety are at the heart of the design and manufacture of all our catamarans.
We constantly listen to the feedbacks brought by you and through our dealers and service centers.
To accompany the use of your Lagoon 450 throughout its life, you will find in this section useful
information, answers to your questions and guidelines to maintain your boat’s seaworthiness and its
resale value. In a nutshell, to get the best out of your Lagoon 450.
Be sure our teams are fully dedicated to support you as they have always done.
Best regards,
The Lagoon Team
First of all, we want to reassure every owner of a Lagoon 450: we do guarantee you that safety and navigability of your boat are preserved whatever the state of your forward bulkhead be.
This guarantee is based on the results of the study we undertook in March 2021, after we realized that there were several Lagoon 450 affected by a forward bulkhead issue. We actually started analyzing the cases reported to us, with some new calculations based on latest available tools, to understand causes and potential impacts of deformed or broken forward bulkhead.
To ensure the reliability of this Finite Element Analysis, we asked VPLP, one of the most renowned international team of naval architects and designers, to review our calculations and results, which they did. They reached the same conclusions as us: there is no safety issue when navigating with a broken or deformed bulkhead. Potential damages on forward bulkhead could not lead to neither dismasting nor any risk for the crew.
How did we come to this conclusion? The forward bulkhead is located in front of the saloon area and is divided into two main areas with different roles:
• The most important one is the central area which withstands 100% of mast compression. This area is stiff and solid. Only this part of the bulkhead has these functions. It cannot be affected by a bulkhead deformation.
• The side parts of the front bulkhead support most of the sea twist effects causing, in a fair number of boats, buckling on its door side. This side part is less rigid to be able to react and guarantee a certain flexibility to the structure of the boat.
A bulkhead is also present in the aft of the boat. This is much less stressed, and it is also rather flexible so it can evolve through navigation time, like many other parts of the boat.
As you may know, at the dock, the mast compression is at least around 9 tons for Lagoon 450. When sailing, this compression increases. So, for the mast to come out of its mast foot would require that the whole boat flex above overall limit of materials: basically, it would mean that the boat breaks apart which has never been the case on cruising catamaran history.
Consequently, we can reassure you that forward bulkhead issue is not a safety issue. It still may become unpleasant if the reinforcement is made late, since bent or buckling bulkhead will only transfer the stress elsewhere.
Flexibility is inherent to the boat’s construction: reinforcing, straightening up or repairing the sides of the bulkhead will still contribute to preserve it and to get the most from your boat, this is why we recommend doing so. Reinforcement, however, will not (and should not), completely remove the flex, as wear naturally comes from boats’ use, just as flexibility: it is and will remain normal to make layout adjustments over time.
You need to be connected on Club Lagoon to see these contents.
Log in or create an account in a few clicks and take advantage of features and contents reserved for members.