BOAT REVIEW Lagoon 50 Mango

While the majority of pleasure boats being launched in New Zealand nowadays are imported, most arrive here courtesy of other, larger boats – shipped here from factories overseas. But for this large cruising cat which has now found a permanent home here, getting to New Zealand was a bit more roundabout.
Lagoon 50 Mango – the first of this model in New Zealand – was launched in late 2018 and sailed here from Europe by her owners. They sailed around 17,000nm – across the Atlantic, through the Caribbean and into the South Pacific, before enjoying summer cruising the north of New Zealand.

Their plan was to return to the islands and enjoy more tropical cruising – until Covid-19 came along. Instead, they decided to leave the boat here, to be sold, and return to their base in Sweden, departing just days before our borders closed.
Their loss was New Zealand’s gain, and their need to get home and leave their pride and joy behind had positive consequences for a new owner. Mango was rapidly snapped up by a Kiwi.
Orakei Marine’s Jason Snashall says catamarans this size are expensive to ship down under, because of the large amount of space they take up – Mango has a 14.75m LOA and a beam of just over 8m – so to have the boat ‘hand-delivered’ was a huge bonus.
It was also good timing, getting the boat here before international borders closed down indefinitely. Snashall says in the past many Kiwi owners have picked their boats up from the European factory and cruised them home, an option which sadly is off the table for now.

As suggested, the Lagoon 50 is big. As well as her impressive length and breadth, she’s also tall with high topsides enclosing a generous interior space (more on that later) and a hard-top flybridge helm station. Top this with an aluminium rig – it’s 26.5m to the masthead. What that height means when you’re on board, though, is great visibility, excellent headroom throughout and plenty of wing-deck clearance.

Ocean Cruiser
We’re only out for a day sail – on a surprisingly bright blue morning following a downpour – but this boat is set up for long-distance cruising. While going up to the islands remains a dream for now, it’s something the new owner definitely has in mind. And while the temperature was a bit wintry on our sail, I can only imagine how nice it would be sitting up on the elevated flybridge on a warm day, looking out over sparkling tropical waters…

This flybridge helm station is a major point of difference for the Lagoon 50, and one which Snashall is keen to show to Kiwi cruisers. All helming and sail control is done from up here, leaving the saloon level free for entertaining. While in warmer, more benign climes the standard model of this boat has this helm area open to the elements, on Mango it has a permanent hard-top with removable clear screens around it, making this a practical space in all weather. Having the helm up so high means great visibility, and there is plenty of room for the whole family to hang out on the large bench seat. The flybridge can be accessed from either hull, up curved staircases, and with its removable squabs the aft bench seat is for lounging and relaxing. At the back of Mango’s flybridge beyond the end of the boom is a serious array of solar panels, positioned to soak up the sunlight.

All sail controls, both halyards and sheets, run to this upper area, where there are three large Harken electric winches, one to port and two to starboard. The jib’s on a self-tacking track forward of the mast, and the main has a German mainsheet system, leading the sheet from the traveller at the rear of the flybridge forward along the boom.
Because this boat has been set up for ocean miles, the original owners had tweaked the sail package, opting for a flat-top main and adding a number of custom foresails, including a roller-furling code zero, a symmetrical parasail and several asymmetric downwind sails flown off the small prod.
A window directly above the wheel means the skipper can keep an eye on the main above, but there’s also a handy instrument showing apparent wind direction to make helming easier. There’s a large, 16-inch B&G touchscreen here for navigation, and the twin throttles for controlling the pair of 80hp Yanmar diesels with their folding props.

On longer passages you don’t have to sit up here to steer in old-school fashion. Another piece of technology making the passage-making process easier is the auto-helm, which can be set and controlled from up top and also from a remote unit. There’s a second, smaller screen at the nav station in the saloon, which means on longer journeys the helmsman can enjoy a few more comforts of the lounging space or even making a snack while ‘driving’. Snashall says having a flybridge-model boat adds to the range of options available; Kiwis are most familiar with the sport-top option on smaller models such as the Lagoon 42, which has an elevated helm station on the port hull under a little ‘pop top’.
“People here haven’t really got used to the idea of a flybridge on a cruising cat, so having this boat here has been awesome for us,” he says. Another reason he was keen to have Mango downunder is because she has so many optional extras. “She has virtually everything from the list of options – the original owners ticked a lot of boxes.”

The main is easily hoisted from and lowered back into a tidy stack with a lazy-jack system, and furling foresails means there’s little need to leave the comfort of the flybridge to get things set up. We start off with the main and standard self-tacking jib, then with a bit of figuring out we get a big code zero unfurled and flying. Out at sea this sail would be great but in the confines of the harbour we need to keep a good lookout – there are a lot more things to hit!

It takes a while to get used to the feel of the steering – the helm station’s is a long way from the rudders – but once we get into the groove we’re reaching away nicely. It also takes a while to get used to sailing by wind instruments rather than being able to see the entire mainsail, but I remind myself we’re not in a race and shift into cruise mode. Visibility all around from the flybridge is great, sail systems are close at hand and the Lagoon is a flat and stable platform even when we’re in a bit of breeze.

Interior comforts
With the sails up and a course set for Waiheke, it’s time to head inside out of the cold wind and check the interior. And what an interior it is. The biggest advantage cruising catamarans have over monohulls is interior space, and Mango has that in spades.
The split-level saloon is simply enormous, with a gigantic U-shaped sofa wrapping around the forward bulkhead, and the galley extending across both sides to the rear of the saloon. The table forward of the substantial cabinet around the base of the mast can be lowered into a ‘coffee table’ position or raised for dining – very clever diagonal legs.
The galley features a four-burner cooktop and full-size, two drawer-style fridges and a large separate freezer and, blessing of all blessings, a full-domestic-size integrated dishwasher. “Because the boat has an inverter we can run domestic appliances like the bread-maker and the Nespresso machine,” adds Snashall.

Another of those boxes the owners ticked was for the ‘Elegance pack’, which up-specs the interior finishes to add leather insets in the walnut cabinetry, Corian worktops, upgraded upholstery and carpet in the forward saloon area. There is dimmable LED strip lighting in the ceiling and down low, under cabinetry. A flat-screen TV pops up out of the cabinetry.
There’s plenty of room for relaxation outside too, with a huge cockpit running the full width of the boat at the back, then narrowing in a seating area between the hulls. This entire area can be enclosed in clears, with the flybridge hard-top and solar panels above keeping it covered. A bench seat runs across the transom between the hulls, with storage on one side and an electric barbecue to starboard. Down a couple of steps each side are boarding platforms, and between them sits the Highfield 340 tender, mounted on a fold-down platform for easy launching and retrieval.

On the bridge-deck forward of the cabin is another seating area, and the central panel of the windscreen also opens up, so snacks and drinks can easily be passed forward to those relaxing out here.
“Lagoon wanted to make a big, social boat,” Snashall says. “You can easily sit ten in the saloon, and even if there are lots of people on board, there’s still plenty of space.”
Because of its size and popularity as a charter cat, the 50 comes in a range of cabin configurations: three, four, or even six. Mango has three: two doubles in the port hull, each with its own head and shower, and the owner’s suite taking up the entirety of the starboard hull.

This is more of a hotel room than a cabin on a yacht, with a large double bed aft, seating area in the middle, and possibly the largest yacht bathroom we have seen outside a superyacht forward, including an overhead rain-style shower, and his-and-hers vanities. There is even – wait for it – a walk-in wardrobe, and the whole cabin can be closed off with a sliding door which doubles as a bookshelf. Now that’s what I call a cabin!
For long-range cruising the boat’s equipped with an 11 kVA generator, dive compressor, and a 150 litres/hour Schenker water-maker, a domestic-size washer-dryer and zonal air conditioning, so the temperature can be varied in different areas of the boat.
The fact that Mango has already sailed halfway round the world without incident – her hull and rig were checked on arrival and everything was ship-shape – says a lot about her seaworthiness and sailing ability. She’s not necessarily designed for speed, but with a good wardrobe of sails and simple systems she can eat through the miles in comfort.

And then, once you’ve reached your destination, the Lagoon 50 offers tons of space to spread out and enjoy life, with multiple entertaining areas and generous cabins. She’s set up ready for the Haruaki Gulf and, come the opening of the Pacific bubble, her new owners can sail with confidence to warmer waters.
Mango might have come a long way, but her delivery here was just the start.