Let's get the disclosure out of the way first: we own a Fusion 40 — Mā Tori, built in 2007 — and she's currently for sale. So yes, we have skin in the game. But we've also lived with this boat through a full refit and three consecutive New Zealand–Fiji seasons, and there's surprisingly little honest, detailed information about the Fusion 40 online. This is the review we wish we'd found before we bought ours: what the design gets right, what it doesn't, and what you should look hard at before buying any of them.
Where the Fusion 40 came from
The Fusion 40 was designed by Gary Lidgard, of the well-known New Zealand Lidgard design family, for the Australian Fusion Catamarans operation. The design brief is worth understanding, because it explains almost everything about how the boat feels. Rather than starting from a spreadsheet of charter berths, Lidgard consulted widely with experienced multihull owners about what they actually wanted from a mid-size cruising cat. The answer that kept coming back: real liveaboard comfort, but on a platform that stayed light, stiff and nimble enough to sail properly — not a floating apartment that needs 18 knots of breeze to wake up.
The result is a 12.2-metre catamaran with a 7.0-metre beam — a generous beam-to-length ratio that gives stability and interior volume — but with a displacement well below the production 40-footers of the same era. Around 60 Fusion 40s were built, mostly for Australian and New Zealand owners, and they've quietly earned a reputation in the Tasman and Coral Sea cruising community as capable, honest passage-makers.
The kit/modular build model — and what it means for quality
Here's the part that confuses people, so let's be precise. The Fusion 40 was sold as a modular kit: the major components — hulls, bridgedeck, cabin structure — were professionally moulded (initially in Australia, later in Thailand) using resin infusion, then assembled and fitted out either by the factory, by professional yards, or by owners themselves.
That means two things, and both matter enormously to a buyer:
- The structure itself is consistent and good. Every Fusion 40 starts from the same professionally infused mouldings: foam-sandwich vinylester topsides and solid fibreglass below the waterline. Resin infusion gives controlled resin ratios — light, strong laminates without the dry spots or resin-rich heavy patches of hand layup. Vinylester and solid glass below the waterline make the hulls highly osmosis-resistant, which is a genuine long-term ownership advantage over some polyester production boats of the same vintage.
- The fit-out varies from boat to boat. The wiring, plumbing, joinery, systems installation and finish depend on who completed the boat and how much care they took. Some Fusion 40s are finished to a professional standard that embarrasses production boats; others are, frankly, rough.
This is why we tell every prospective Fusion buyer the same thing: judge the individual boat, not the badge — and never skip the survey. A good marine surveyor will see through cosmetics in an afternoon. The upside of this variance is real, though: because the market prices in the uncertainty, a well-completed, well-maintained Fusion 40 is exceptional value. You're getting infused-composite construction and a proven offshore design for considerably less than a production cat of similar capability.
Fusion 40 specifications
| Specification | Fusion 40 |
|---|---|
| Designer | Gary Lidgard |
| Length overall | 12.2 m (40 ft) |
| Beam | 7.0 m |
| Draft | 1.1 m |
| Construction | Resin-infused foam-sandwich vinylester topsides; solid fibreglass below waterline |
| Build model | Modular kit — professionally moulded components, factory/professional/owner completion |
| Number built | Approximately 60 |
| Typical engines | Twin diesel saildrives (Mā Tori: 2 × Yanmar 3YM30, 29 HP each) |
| Typical layout | 3 queen cabins; owner's hull to port, two guest cabins to starboard |
| Production years | 2000s (Mā Tori built 2007) |
Layout: designed by people who live aboard
Step aboard a Fusion 40 and the first impression is light. The saloon carries near-panoramic glazing, so at anchor you're sitting in the view rather than hiding from it — a small thing on paper, a huge thing when the saloon is your living room for months at a time.
Saloon, galley and cockpit as one space
The galley is up, in the saloon, where the cook stays part of the conversation and gets the same view as everyone else. The big move, though, is the barn-door opening between saloon and cockpit: open it up and the two spaces merge into one indoor–outdoor living area the full width of the boat. In the tropics this is how you live — trade winds through, shade overhead. That shade comes from a proper hard bimini over the cockpit, not canvas: it shrugs off sun and squalls alike and gives you a solid platform for solar panels. After three Fijian seasons we'd rank the hard bimini among the most underrated features on the boat.
The owner's hull
The three-cabin layout gives each cabin a genuine queen berth. The port hull is the owner's suite, and its party trick is aft: a big, properly separated shower compartment and an electric-head bathroom that owners often compare to the arrangement on the much-admired Perry 43. On a 40-foot cat, a shower you don't have to fold yourself into is a daily luxury. Two guest queen cabins in the starboard hull handle family and friends without anyone drawing the short straw.
Working the boat
Sail handling centres on a single electric winch in the cockpit, with lines led aft. One person can hoist, reef and trim without leaving the shelter of the bimini. For a cruising couple — which is who this boat is really for — that layout is the difference between reefing early because it's easy and reefing late because it's a production.
How she sails
This is where the design brief pays off. The Fusion 40 is light for its size compared with the volume-production 40-footers, and it shows in exactly the conditions cruisers actually sail in. In 8–12 knots of breeze — the days heavier cats spend motoring — a well-set-up Fusion keeps sailing. That's not just a fuel saving; it's the difference between a passage you enjoyed and one you endured.
The 1.1-metre draft is the other quiet superpower. It opens up anchorages the deeper production fleet can't touch: inside reef lagoons in Fiji, up rivers and into shallow bays in Northland, tucked close in behind a sandbar when the wind gets up. You can also dry the boat out for a scrub between hauls where conditions allow. After a few seasons you stop thinking about draft — and then you watch a 1.4-metre boat anchor half a mile further out and remember why you chose this one.
Offshore, the light displacement means you feel the sea more than you would on a heavy charter cat — motion is quicker, and you sail the boat rather than just pointing it. We'd call it honest rather than harsh. Mā Tori has carried us between New Zealand and Fiji three seasons running (2023–2025), holding NZ Category 1 offshore certification each time — the most demanding recreational offshore standard New Zealand issues, with an inspector going through the boat before every departure. That's not marketing; it's a paper trail.
Living aboard: the long-haul view
A boat reveals itself somewhere around month three of living aboard. What we've learned from the Fusion 40: the indoor–outdoor flow genuinely changes how you use the boat — the cockpit and saloon are one room, so nobody is ever exiled. The panoramic saloon means anchor watches, rainy days and sundowners all happen in comfort. Queen berths in every cabin mean guests stop being a compromise. And the systems spaces are accessible enough that maintenance is a job, not an archaeology dig — though again, that depends partly on who fitted out the boat you're looking at.
On our own boat we've set her up for independent cruising: 700W of solar into 540Ah of lithium, a 2000W inverter, a watermaker, Starlink and Iridium. The platform takes that kind of fit-out well — there's roof area for solar and hull volume for tankage without the boat getting heavy and losing the plot.
What to check when buying any Fusion 40
Because completion standards vary, here's the checklist we'd give a friend:
- Who completed the boat, and to what standard? Ask for the build history. Factory- or professionally-completed boats, or owner completions by tradespeople, are the strong end of the fleet.
- Survey, always. Insist on a full pre-purchase survey by a surveyor experienced with composite multihulls. Moisture-check the decks and bridgedeck, and inspect the hull-to-bridgedeck joins.
- Wiring and plumbing. This is where amateur completions show. Look for labelled, tinned wiring, proper fusing and accessible seacocks — or budget to redo it.
- Saildrives. Like every saildrive cat, check service history, diaphragm/seal age and anode condition. Ask when the drives were last serviced out of the water.
- Rig age. Standing rigging has a working life; find out when it was last replaced or professionally inspected.
- Refit history. A 2000s boat should have had major systems renewed by now. One with a documented recent refit (sails, electrical, antifouling) is worth a real premium over one that hasn't — the refit costs more than the price difference.
- Offshore paper trail. Evidence like NZ Cat 1 certification or documented ocean passages tells you the boat has been maintained to a standard someone independent has verified.
Ownership economics
The Fusion 40 sits in a sweet spot for running costs. Two small 29 HP diesels are cheap to service and frugal to run; light displacement means modest sail sizes and modest loads on the gear, so replacements cost less than they do on bigger, heavier boats. Antifouling a 40-foot cat is a real bill, but the 1.1-metre draft widens your haul-out (and dry-out) options. Insurance on an owner-completed boat can take a little more shopping around than a production brand — insurers like recent surveys, so keep yours current; it helps at renewal and at resale.
The honest trade-off on resale: a Fusion 40 doesn't have Lagoon's brand recognition or brokerage machine, so selling can take longer and the buyer pool is more specialised. What you get in exchange is more boat per dollar going in — a lighter, better-built structure than the same money buys in a production cat — and less depreciation exposure, because you didn't pay the brand premium in the first place.
Our verdict
The Fusion 40 is what happens when a designer asks cruisers what they want instead of asking a charter company. It's light enough to sail well, shallow enough to anchor where others can't, built from materials that age gracefully, and laid out for real life aboard. The catch is variance: you're buying an individual boat, not a certificate of brand conformity, so the survey does the work the badge would otherwise do. Find a good one — professionally finished, recently refitted, with an offshore record — and it's among the best value cruising catamarans afloat. We're biased, of course. But we're biased because we've done the miles.
Keep reading: see how the design stacks up against the production competition in our Fusion 40 vs Lagoon 42 comparison, dig into the wider debate in owner-built vs production catamarans, or browse the field in our guide to the best cruising catamarans under $500k. And if this review has you curious about a particular Fusion 40, ours is right here.