“Living Hakuna” Lagoon 420 Review and Owner Interview

On Monday November 23, 2020, we interviewed Alejo and Andrea of S/V Hakuna about their 2008 Lagoon 420. They purchased her through our for sale by owner listings on CatamaranSite.com and kindly sat down with us and explained what they really love about the Lagoon 420 and gave advice to catamaran buyers in the market for one. We also talked about their story, cruising plans, Akitas, and what it is like to be YouTube stars. Please follow along and support their journey on YouTube and join their crew on Patreon.

Executive Summary

• Before moving onto Lagoon 420, they had a travel trailer. Love kite surfing and have been chasing the wind.
• Chose a catamaran and a Lagoon 420 specifically because of spaciousness, flat platform, and separate shower. They travel with two large Akita dogs which requires more space and stability.
• Charter version with 4 cabins and 4 heads. Considered chartering to help pay off boat. They couldn’t get insurance for chartering though.
• Also chose charter layout due to budget limitations.
• Separate shower from toilet was big plus of model.
• Feels much bigger than 42 feet. Everyone asks if they are sure it is only that length.
• Bridgedeck clearance is an issue and slamming happens in weather.
• Does not sail well in light winds. Too heavy. Downside to all the comfort and room onboard.
• Davit design is not great and gets water in dinghy and has to monitored offshore.
• There was a recall on the original roller furler that came on Lagoon 420’s and if it has not been replaced it must be at some point. It gets stuck sometimes.
• Please see links in the transcript and summary above for their YouTube channel to follow them.

Before we go too much further you should probably learn about the people we’re talking about today. S/V Living Hakuna is a 2008 Lagoon 420. Andrea and Alejo chose to live aboard this vessel after being campers for a while you guys and then you got into kite surfing and tell us your story.

How did you guys get into all this stuff?

Andrea & Alejo: We’ve been living on board Hakuna for a year now and it all started. Alejo just had this dream. We had already been traveling for two years. We had been just chasing the wind just going kite surfing wherever there’s wind. We would just go there and live there three months.

Then we built a travel trailer. We lived in that travel trailer for a couple like six months or so. We traveled around the US, Mexico and then we went to Colombia. We were there and that’s when the idea of living in a catamaran came up.

Then we started working towards the dream. I was a little..I didn’t believe it could happen because it seemed like way out of our league, but here we are so it happened. That’s kind of about it.

Why did you choose the Lagoon 420? What was it about that boat that made you guys kind of say that’s the boat for me?

Andrea: We started looking into catamarans because for Alejo it wasn’t an option to get a monohull. He wanted something spacious. We also travel with our dogs. They’re very big. They’re Akitas. They’re very big dogs. They’ve been a priority for us always, so we wanted them to be as comfortable as we were going to be and and so that’s why choosing a catamaran was an option.

We didn’t know about the Lagoon 420 of when we started looking into catamarans. We looked at the Lagoon 410. We looked at Leopards. We look at oh yeah and so the Lagoon 420 really we didn’t know about it until doing a lot of research and we found that and we’re like okay this is our dream boat and that’s it that that’s it we knew.

We wanted that boat because in terms of comfort. It’s one of the most comfortable catamarans out there.

Alejo: For a 42 foot catamaran, it’s like the biggest you can get in space like interior and exterior.

Also we chose a catamaran because of the movement. It will be a lot easier for the dogs and for us. It will be a lot more like a house.

This is maybe something that you’re going to ask further on in the interview but another reason is having a shower separate from a toilet. It was huge for us. It was one of the few catamarans that actually had that option in that size in our budget.

It’s a charter version, so how many state rooms you have in there and how many heads? Tell us a little bit about the layout of the boat?

A&A: It’s four heads and four cabins. Two in each hull. Two cabins and two heads in each hull. We chose that type of of layout because it’s more space and if we wanted to have guests over we could have more people. At first we were thinking of having a charter business, bringing on people so we can pay off the boat, but it ended up not happening.

Only one insurance company would cover people like us. I had no idea how to say oh like that would never happen, so we didn’t end up doing that.

One of the other things about why we chose the charter version. Well we looked into the owner’s version, but it’s a lot cheaper to go with the charter version.

And we’re actually glad we did because we have an entire room just for not for store but for storage for like all our kiteboarding gear and all the diving stuff. It’s great for us and it’s very convenient and in terms of something that you were asking about the layout. We have four heads but the two heads in the bow – the shower is separated from the toilet and in the washer where you wash your hands. I don’t remember what it’s called. And then the two heads in the stern, it’s within the same bathroom like you’re still it’s still the same place I guess. But you’re not showering on top of the toilet which is a lot of what happens in a lot of catamarans. You literally have to be showering on top of the toilet.

That’s pretty much every boat I’ve ever been on you had a shower basically in the toilet!

A&A: Isn’t it yeah? And that was a deal breaker for me personally that was huge.

Speaking of sanitary stuff. You guys live with two dogs. What’s it like living with dog hair and all the other things that are going on? How do you guys handle that in a catamaran?

A&A: A lot of cleaning yeah. We have a lot of vacuum cleaners. We have to clean every single day. If not it gets really messy but it’s part of it. The sand and the hairs and everything.

Having the extra space for the cleaning supplies and the full-size vacuum and all the stuff that you need that’s probably very helpful with the catamaran versus any other vessel right?

Yeah 100%.

Tell us a little about where she was built and how you guys got her. I understand you had to pay some extra money to get her imported to the United States? Tell us a little bit about that process.

She was built in France by Lagoon and we bought her here in the USA in South Carolina from a German family. They bought the catamaran in Croatia. They did one year of cruising, and they ended up here in the USA. But it had a German flag so we had to do the importation, so we can register the catamaran here in the USA.

What is your favorite part of living on this boat in this particular boat?

A&A: It’s just so comfortable honestly. We’ve been on other catamarans and other monohulls and most of the people that actually come on board our boat. They’re just very surprised by the amount of space and people that look at it from the outside they ask like are you sure it’s upwards 42 because it just seems a lot bigger.

It’s great with having the dogs and giving them that additional space because we’re already living very different than living on land. So just having that space inside the salon and then just also inside the cabins. We’re able to walk around the cabin. We don’t have to jump in the bed, diving to the cabin.

Alejo: It’s very comfortable. I also like the head room. It’s very high so it makes it like makes like the interior film like very big.

Well that’s actually that’s a great point. I don’t know how tall are you?

Alejo: I’m like five eleven five eleven.

So you’re not a short guy, but it’s got good head room for you?

A&A: Yeah the previous owner he’s a German but he’s like he’s so tall. He could work like everywhere in the boat without ducking or anything so it’s super nice. Sailors tend to have this like permanent bruise in the middle of their forehead from walking into doors.

Have you been in heavy weather? What is she like when it gets a little bit too breezy?

A&A: Since she’s pretty heavy, so it moves but it’s not like performance cameras that it moves like a lot. This one’s like more steady but we get slamming from the bridge deck because the clearance is not that high.

She handles everything like pretty well. She’s pretty tough. She’s heavy. It feels like a tank. We just reef the sails and that’s it. She likes windy days oh yeah.

Well that’s good because where are you guys located right now you’re down in the Caribbean?

A&A: yeah no right now we’re still in Miami

So you guys gonna be taking her around the next couple months and stretching her out in heavy winds?

A&A: that’s the goal we’re planning on sailing all the way to South America.

Have your reefed her? I mean how hard is she to reef? Is that a two-man job one-man job. What do you think?

A&A: One-man job. Everything’s done like in the helm. All the lines come to a helm, so you can do everything by yourself. If you have to go up to a boom, it’s pretty easy. You just jump like two times and you’re right there in the boom. It’s very easy to handle that boat with just one person I would you say.

How does she perform in light winds?

A&A: She does not like light wind days at all. Definitely very heavy. It’s not a performance and that’s the bad side of having such a comfortable boat. It’s great in terms of space in terms of comfort but when we’re sailing not as good.

The other time we were sailing with a couple that was in another catamaran. It was a Seawind, and they arrived two hours before us.

How about docking and motoring i mean how does she do in close quarters and is she very maneuverable with her motor?

A&A: yeah yeah yeah we have two big engines they’re like 75 horsepower engines so it is pretty easy just take it slow. If you’ve got good wind you use the sails and if you’ve got no wind you use the motor right yes and sometimes we just motor sail like we do both.

What about her points of sail? does she how does she go to wind Does she she’d like go up wind at all?

A&A: She sails pretty good upwind but the best point of sail will be beam reach for all catamarans. We love going down like down way. With the parasailers oh it’s amazing yeah

I imagine as kite surfers you guys probably appreciate the downwind leg a lot more?

A&A: yeah very comfortable it’s perfect it’s super calm very peaceful yeah it’s great

Well let’s talk okay we’ve we you obviously love your boat but if you could change anything about your boat if something that maybe the designer didn’t think of or something.

What would you say is one detractor to the Lagoon 420?

A&A: One of the things that i would change is the davits for dinghy. Put it a little bit higher because sometimes when we get like really big like waves. They hit the boat and the thing is starts taking on water so we have to make sure it’s like the plug is out of the thingy so it doesn’t get filled up with water. That’s one thing yeah

One of the other things was that the roller further. We’ve had some issues with it the original brother further for the jib. It gets stuck sometimes and he does a lot of research on that and i don’t know what he wants.

The original roller folder that the Lagoon 420 came with has a problem from factory and they did a recall and the people the people that did the recalls i mean they’ll be fine. But our boat has the original so it gets like stuck and so we have to change it like later on in the future

So is that is that on your to-do list to change out the roller furler?

Alejo: Yeah yeah

Is there anything else you have on your to-do list?

A&A: Maybe like feathering props maybe we could get this or not because anything we can do to make the vote faster it would be great

We got to get your youtube subscribers to help pay those bills.

A&A: yeah yeah for sure

How’s it going with the channel? How do you liking recording your life and sharing your world on the sailboat?

Andrea: it’s pretty cool. We’ve learned a lot it’s good to share with people which is really cool because we get a lot of positive comments and a lot of people saying that it’s very motivational when you hear that you inspired someone to do the same thing or to live in a similar way that you do so that’s very special.

And then also just we looked back to the videos when we first started and we’re like oh my god i can’t believe we were doing that. We had no idea what we were doing and we were trying to move this 42 foot giant catamaran. We had a bunch of yachts in front of us like if we like crashed into one of those yachts. We would be in that forever because they were so expensive so i don’t know.

It’s funny to look back and see how much we how much progress we have done and how better we have gotten just in general like in terms of being able to feel more comfortable with all the repairs because there’s tons of repairs when you live on a boat. There’s every other day you have to do some kind of maintenance or some kind of repairs and then but in addition to that just the sailing.

Alejo has been like taking on the captain 100% and he’s great at it so that has given each one of us identifying with a role in the boat and just kind of like the lifestyle. I do a lot of the videos and we also have an online business and then he helps me a lot with it but then he has been like on the role for being the captain and doing really good at itself.

That sounds absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for joining me.

A&A: Thank you Chris! Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. Can I add one thing? We actually found our catamaran through CatamaranSite.com !

Talk about that. That is amazing! If you’re looking for a sailboat just like Andrea and Alejo, we have them. They are in Miami right now on their way to South America. Thanks for watching and make sure you tune in because we’ll hopefully be doing this every week from here on out. Have a great day.