Lagoon 450S

The Lagoon 450s wasn’t a boat I really wanted to charter. It was swapped at the last minute by DYC due to the original boat having issues. My feelings were correct, I didn’t love it.

While I really enjoyed the Lagoon 450F (flybridge), the “SporTop” version has a sunken helm that is inconvenient. The winches are all very high and awkward to use manually. Our charter had three power winches, but only the main halyard power winch worked (thank God). Look at the pictures. The winches were way to high to use without climbing up on the stairs that led to the boom. It wasn’t a fun or comfortable spot to be. I originally thought power winches were silly for the sheets, but I was wrong. I wished they worked.

As a personal preference, I don’t like small helms for charters. I want to be with my friends and this small helm area could hardly fit three people. The 450F has a ton of space for the whole crew to hang out while you cruise. Being the skipper can get a little lonely with this type of helm (IMO).

Other than that, the boat was pretty good.

Pros:
Large saloon with dining areas inside and outside.

A lot of padded areas to sit on. Multiple spots on the stern, near the boom, and on the bow gave people options depending on the weather.

The 450S has a lower boom which makes it a bit easier to deal with the main sail. It is still pretty high so dealing with the sail, reefing lines, etc. was still not “easy.”

The owner’s version has a crazy amount of storage and a generously sized bathroom.

The boat we had included a water maker. Having a water maker is amazing. You can be a little more liberals with showers, dishes, etc.

This boat also had a generator, and air conditioning. AC units in each hull and the saloon. They kept temperatures better than many boats we have had.

This boat had nice, responsive B&G touch screen instruments. Navionics, AIS, etc. Great setup.

Cons:
I do not like the helm at all. Beyond the above, at 5’ 6” it was difficult to see the front of the boat for mooring ball pickup.

I didn’t love the mooring bridal setup. The cleats required the lines to run in places that could get caught or under the bow chair. We tried a few different configurations and didn’t really like any of them. Not a deal breaker for a charter boat.

The dinghy davits use two lines to hoist the bow and stern of the dinghy. There was one winch. It worked okay, but it was a bit annoying. We also found that the dinghy was dangerously close to the water when going through swells. If the dinghy wasn’t as high as possible and the motor raised, it would catch waves. Not a great setup.

Emptying the heads was a pain. The manual valves are under the floorboard in the bilge area, and it just isn’t a fun or glamorous job. When you need to open them at sea…it’s even less comfortable/safe.

The cushions are connected to the fiberglass with wimpy snaps. In our case, most of the snaps were gone. The cushions are expensive and losing one will get you hit with large fees. One of ours was missing when we arrived so we documented it with pictures and on the check-out form.

The bow cushions are nice, but they are also a pain when you need to get into the windlass and the other lockers. You have to unsnap them, do whatever you need to do, and then re-snap them. Sounds simple, but it sucks.

This was an odd situation that is probably unique to this specific boat, we had a batten fly out of our mainsail! When we first hoisted the main, the main flapped as it went up, and out shot a 20-30’ long batten! SCARY!

Summary: This boat is fine, but I wouldn’t choose to take it again. We had an amazing trip so if this is the only boat available, you will have a great time anyway.