From Charter Duty to Shipshape: Rewiring a Well-Worn Lagoon 450

This 2015 Lagoon 450 catamaran came to us showing every mile of a hard life in the charter fleet. Years of rotating guests, a previous 120V conversion that hadn’t been fully thought through, and a lithium battery upgrade that left more questions than answers — this boat needed a reset.

The centerpiece of the project was installing a custom DC breaker panel to replace the original Scheiber panel, which had a broken switches, voltage drop across circuits, and wiring running unfused. A direct replacement panel was an option, but would have come at a steep cost, a long lead time, and still wouldn’t have suited how the boat is actually used today. Instead, we custom-built a new panel laid out with the realities of charter guests in mind — durable and straightforward for the rotating cast of customers who’ll be aboard.

Along with the new panel, we cleaned up the accumulated AC and DC wiring behind the scenes, moved the water heater and battery charger AC circuits into the rest of the AC system for better organization, and diagnosed and corrected the wiring on the boat’s Orion DC-DC chargers — the previous install had left them wired incorrectly, so the house bank wasn’t charging off the alternator.

For monitoring, we installed a Victron Cerbo GX MKII paired with a GX Touch 70 flush-mount display, giving a clear, modern window into the boat’s electrical system.

The result is a DC and monitoring system that finally matches the caliber of the boat itself — safer, easier to troubleshoot, and ready for the next charter season.

Boat: 2015 Lagoon 450 catamaran

Key gear installed: Custom DC breaker panel, Victron Cerbo GX MKII, Victron GX Touch 70