I am not sure how much time Capt Monk has spent on the 4800. I own half of one so you can add any bias you want to my comments. I have a lot of time on most cruising cats. I owned a Voyage 440 plus prior to this boat.
I purchased the boat strickly on the financial aspects of the charter arrangement. I did not have any great expectations on the sailing ability. It appeared to be a derivative of the Sunsail 444 which is a slug.
It turns out the boat looks like a 444 but is a totally different design from a different designer. It's a Alex Simonis design. He is noted for performance cats and did the Voyage line and the older 4700 which was a decent sailing boat.
I have overall been very surprised by how well the boat sails. It's the best tacking cruising cat I have ever sailed. It performs well on all points of sail but probably points about 5 degrees less close hauled then the Voyage 440. The Voyage was however a exceptional pointing cat. On my last trip we had a informal race with two Voyage 5200's from Virgin Gorda to Anegada. We easily beat both boats.
The Lagoon 500 is a significantly bigger boat then the 4800 yet carries almost 450 sq ft less sail area because of the fly bridge. There is a good article still available online about how well the boat has performed on deliveries from South Africa. Experienced delivery skippers were as surprised as I have been on how well it sails.
As far as hanging out the helm station is not isolated from the cockpit so getting everyone at the hem station is not a big issue.
One last point. If you are divers the 4800 makes a great platform with excellent water access going into the water. You can gear up 8 divers and all go in at the same time. Sadly coming out is not as good with only one boarding ladder.
G

Last edited by GeorgeC1; 01/25/2016 05:29 PM.