High heels allowed

If you step on a Lagoon 44-450 coming from a big hotel suite you’ll feel slightly constricted, but on the other side if you climb on it (sorry I cannot call ‘she’ a catamaran) from the side of a 44ft monohull you’ll suspect that you just arrived on top of the Table Mountain. The thing IS huge. The combination of saloon, veranda and a fly bridge on top of it is so captivating that you’ll even forget you are surrounded by plastic.  Your wife will love it so much that you’ll tear off those stupid stickers banning high heels. You cannot find anything wrong in it… Well, apart from the lack of style, that is…

Less so when you move ‘downstairs’. True the cabins are wide and nicely cherry-paneled, but heads tend to be less impressive in scale, to sail the least. Well you cannot avoid it if you want 4 heads in a 44 ft yacht right?

Sailing

The electric winch is essential if you want to fly the main, an item that is seriously heavy. And might as well be so, because when sailing the surface is always perpendicular to the wind, and one has just a very slight idea of the pressure of it on the canvas. A catamaran is a boat where you tend to forget that the pressure of the air on a surface increases to the square… On the other side the jib is a diminutive thing and if you wish to sail with that only you need plenty of pressure.

The requirements of comfort (shape, width and liters of water) are a hefty toll to pay to performances. One could indeed expect to sail faster that 8 knots, but this would be highly unlikely and it could be distressing to see sleek monohulls flying by under a spinnaker you are unlikely to have. On the other side if goes well and fast under power, using little fuel (say 180 euros a week), and question is what is the mast there for. Lagoon answered this question already offering only power versions.

Considering that, lacking emotions, there is not much to do under sail apart from suntanning and cooking, one is often tempted to enjoy a siesta in bed. Better if you do not, unless you are a heavy sleeper, because when moving the thing emits a whole cacophony of sounds, and you’ll feel like you are traveling the Paris-Roubaix on an old Fiat bus. There is not a single locker, panel, door and hinge that does not emit some kind of sound.

Comments

The Lagoon 440 is a mule, a working boat, perfect for charter in calm waters, offering good money to the owner and fair value to the charterer. Charter a Lagoon 440 and you have a villa on the sea that must be bought with a central agent and with exact tables for costs and revenues. I would not even worry for the quality of construction because I would not dare to venture in blue waters. But it’s the best place to enjoy a sundowner.

Specifications

builder: Lagoon

loa 45.80 [ft]

beam 25.72 [ft]

draft — [ft]

displacement 34,171 [lbs]

sail area 1,447 [sqft]

water tank 77 [gls]

fuel tank 220 [gls]

Accomodations

toilets 4

cabins 4

berths 8

Prices /week

low season 3,900 €

middle season 6,300 €

high season max 10,200 €

Crew have own cabin, prices do not include crew