[MHml] Multihull delivery gone badly wrong

[Alan Christoffersen]

Hi Marius,

 

Firstly, please accept my apologies – there was absolutely no personal
offence intended with my comments. I hadn’t seen your website before sending
off . We have just had a lot of snow here (in Denmark), in some areas the
schools are closed, Police are asking people to stay at home etc. so a
visit to your website gets one dreaming of holiday times


 

I  agree with you, a trip along that beautiful coastline in comfort is what
these boats are designed for – in my opinion. There seems to be a trend in
certain market niches, where the boats are turning into very dangerous
compromises..

 

A few years ago – most of the French built “roomarans” had inadequate sail
area to really be dangerous boats. I know, as I have a Fountaine Pajot
Tobago 35!  (Building period was  between 94 and 99 I think)

 I would really have to work hard to flip it,. In those days,  all the
boatyards were terrified of any flips that could lead to questioning of the
safety – and thereby limiting sales to the lucrative charter markets. In
fact FP did have a well sailing boat in the 32 ft. Maldives – but as soon as
one flipped, they stopped the production.  Later on the Athena 38 was simply
too sluggish, so they quietly did a MKII version with increased sail area.

 

The situation has changed now, production has been ramped up, the South
African built boats are taking more and more market share – so the big
builders have turned to increasingly to private buyers – making the boats
more attractive from a price point. Here performance is again becoming a
point – and we are now seeing increasingly large sail areas, with often
inadequate deck hardware (cost saving) – I had a look at the FP Mahe – she
has ONE undersized winch for practically all sail handling. So prices come
down, sales go up – as does sail area...

 

So as you also point out – large numbers of boats being sold to
inexperienced sailors – is an accident waiting to happen.

 

Heavy boats, lots of windage, high CoG, undersized deck hardware, and badly
mounted /too few rope handling facilities – large fixed biminis
and big
waves and wind is a dangerous mixture, when you then add
inexperienced/tired/ crew something is bound to happen.

 

Lets hope that we don’t see too many more of these situations – hopefully
the full story will come out so maybe we can all learn something..

 

Regards

 

Alan Christoffersen

 

  _____  

Fra: multihulls-bounces at steamradio.com
[mailto:multihulls-bounces at steamradio.com] På vegne af Marius Coomans
Sendt: 23. februar 2007 04:15
Til: Informed discussion of multihull issues
Emne: Re: [MHml] Multihull delivery gone badly wrong

 

Hi Alan,

It's horses for courses. My wife and I enjoyed spending two months traveling
in comfort along the East Australian Coast to the Great Barrier reef in our
Lagoon 380. I make no apologies for their looks (a friend of mind calls ours
a russian submarine) nor for their headroom (I'm 6 ft 4, 1.94).

Instead I'm interested in finding out more about what actually happened.
With over 400 built and many in the hands of relatively inexperienced
sailors, I've never previously heard of one capsize.

Marius Coomans
http://temoana.coomans.com

On 2/23/07, Alan Christoffersen < alan at insatech.com
<mailto:alan at insatech.com> > wrote:

Its always sad when lives are lost.

Don't Lagoons have emergency exits/entrances so in the case of a flip, the 
crew can get into a protected room?

I must say - IMO,  they represent some of the worst trends in catamaran
design - for ocean going vessels that is. As a coastal cruiser for use in
protected waters they are probably fine,  but there is obviously a large 
market out there -where the colour on the countertop and the curtains are
important sales factors..  Does anyone think they look nice?  OK Price is
low, so m3/? is very good.

Sorry - I just couldn't resist the comment, having spoken to a salesperson 
on a Lagoon at the La Rochelle boat show , who kept on about how great they
sail, sometimes over 10 knots!!!  they just seem clumbsy and downright
ugly.

Best Regards/Med venlig hilsen

Alan Christoffersen 

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