Full disclosure before we start: we own a kit-built catamaran — a 2007 Fusion 40 called Mā Tori — and she's for sale. So we're not neutral. But we've also been on both sides of this decision as buyers, we've cruised alongside the full spectrum of the fleet for three NZ–Fiji seasons, and we think the standard internet advice on this question is lazy in both directions. The production-cat crowd dismisses owner-completed boats as risky backyard projects; the kit-cat crowd sneers at "charter barges". Both are wrong often enough to cost you money. Here's the honest version.
First, the categories
Three groups, and it pays to keep them straight:
- Kit and owner-completed cats — designs like the Fusion 40, Schionning, Grainger and Lightwave. Typically professionally moulded or CNC-cut composite components, completed by the factory, a professional yard, or the owner. Mostly Australian and New Zealand designs, mostly light, mostly built in modest numbers.
- Volume production cats — Lagoon, Leopard, Fountaine Pajot, Bali. Built in the thousands, heavily optimised for interior volume and the charter market, sold through global dealer and brokerage networks.
- Performance production cats — Nautitech, Outremer, Catana and friends. Factory-built to consistent standards, but with the design brief tilted hard toward sailing performance: lighter laminates, daggerboards or deeper foils on some, narrower hulls, less furniture.
That third group deserves a moment of genuine admiration. An Outremer or a Catana is, in many ways, the boat the kit designers were aiming at: fast, seaworthy, beautifully engineered — with factory consistency on top. The catch is price. New Outremers and Catanas typically run well over €1 million, and even well-used examples command a serious premium. If your budget reaches, they're wonderful. For most cruising budgets, they frame the question rather than answer it: the real decision is between the first two groups.
The resale-value myth vs reality
The most repeated line in this debate is "you'll never sell an owner-built cat." The truth is more specific, and more useful.
What's true: production brands are more liquid. A Lagoon or Leopard has global name recognition, brokers who know exactly how to price it, and a deep pool of buyers who'll consider nothing else. It will typically sell faster, and financing and insurance are more routine for the buyer, which widens the pool further.
What's myth: that liquidity is the same thing as holding value. Production cats carry a brand premium going in, and depreciation applies to the whole purchase price — premium included. A kit or owner-completed cat is bought without that premium, so there's simply less air in the price to escape. In our experience watching the Australasian market, good examples of respected designs — Schionnings, Lightwaves, Fusions with strong build pedigrees and refit records — find committed buyers and hold their value respectably. They take longer to sell, and they sell to people who've done their homework. As sellers, we can confirm: the buyer pool is smaller, but it's better informed.
The honest summary: if you may need to exit quickly, in any market, anywhere in the world, the production brand is worth its premium. If you're buying a boat to use for years and can allow a realistic selling window at the end, the kit cat's lower entry price usually wins the arithmetic.
Build quality: variance is the real issue, and survey is the answer
Production boats are consistent. That's the genuine engineering achievement of the big yards: boat number 400 is built to the same standard as boat number 40, warts and virtues alike. You know what you're getting, and what you're getting is adequate-to-good, built to a cost, at scale.
Kit and owner-completed boats are variable. That's the whole story — not "worse", variable. The structural components of the better kits were professionally engineered and moulded; our Fusion 40's hulls are resin-infused foam-sandwich vinylester with solid glass below the waterline, which is a better laminate schedule than many production boats of the same era. But the completion — wiring, plumbing, joinery, systems — ranges from superb (many were finished by tradespeople or professional yards) to genuinely poor.
So the survey does the work the brand name would otherwise do. On a production boat, the survey confirms condition. On an owner-completed boat, the survey establishes quality — and you should budget for a thorough one, with a surveyor who knows composite multihulls, and walk away without regret if the boat fails it. The good news: bad completions are rarely subtle. Labelled tinned wiring, tidy plumbing runs, fair paintwork and a coherent systems layout are visible in an hour; their absence is too. And here's the part the sneerers miss — because the market prices in the variance, a verified good owner-completed boat is one of the best value propositions in sailing. You pay a discount for uncertainty that your surveyor has just removed.
Weight and performance
Volume production cats are optimised for berths per metre. That means high freeboard, full bridgedeck accommodation, generous tankage and furniture — and the weight that goes with it. The result sails adequately in a breeze and motors a lot in light air. That's not a flaw; it's the design brief, and for charter work it's the correct brief.
Kit designs from the Australian school — Schionning, Grainger, Lidgard's Fusion — came from a different brief: owners who wanted to sail. They're typically meaningfully lighter than production boats of the same length, and it shows exactly where cruisers live: in the 8–14 knot range, where a light cat sails and a heavy cat motors. Our Fusion 40 has kept sailing on afternoons we've watched heavier boats furl up and turn the key. Over three Fiji seasons that's a fuel budget, but more honestly it's the difference between passages you remember fondly and deliveries you endured. Lighter boats also load their gear more gently, and shallow-draft designs (ours draws 1.1 m) open anchorages the production fleet anchors outside of.
The trade: less interior volume than a production cat of the same length, and a quicker motion seaway. If you want maximum apartment for your metre, production wins that contest fairly.
Price per capability
Run the numbers on what your budget actually buys. In the current market, a late-model production 40-footer typically sits well north of NZ$800k, and new ones considerably higher; a decade-old charter-fleet example can be had for less, but often arrives with charter miles and a refit list. At the performance end, you're typically over €1m new. A well-found kit cat with a documented refit generally lands in the NZ$350–550k band — often with a specification (lithium, solar, watermaker, offshore certification) that the same money nowhere near reaches in a production boat.
The right way to compare is cost per capability: offshore-ready, as-surveyed, with the systems you'd actually cruise with. On that measure, the verified-good kit cat is usually the cheapest way to go cruising properly — and the production cat is the cheapest way to own a known quantity.
| Factor | Kit / owner-completed (Fusion, Schionning, Grainger, Lightwave) |
Volume production (Lagoon, Leopard, FP, Bali) |
Performance production (Nautitech, Outremer, Catana) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build quality | Structure typically excellent; completion varies boat to boat | Consistent, built to a cost, at scale | Consistently high; performance-grade engineering |
| Weight | Typically light — designed by and for sailors | Heavy — optimised for charter volume | Light — the design priority |
| Price (comparable size/age) | Lowest — no brand premium | Mid to high — brand premium, wide range | Highest — new boats typically well over €1m |
| Resale | Slower sale, informed buyers, modest depreciation from a lower base | Most liquid — global brokerage and finance support | Strong niche demand, holds value well |
| Survey importance | Critical — the survey establishes quality | Important — the survey confirms condition | Important — condition and rig/foil history |
Insurance and finance
Two practical frictions to know about before you fall in love. Marine finance is easier against a production brand — lenders like assets they can value from a database. Owner-completed boats more often mean a bigger deposit or a cash purchase. Insurance for a kit cat is entirely obtainable — we carry full offshore cover, and NZ Cat 1 certification has never hurt our case — but expect the insurer to lean on a recent survey, and expect to shop around rather than take the first quote. Keep your survey current through ownership; it smooths every renewal and becomes a selling document later. Neither issue is a dealbreaker. Both are worth pricing in before you commit.
When a production cat IS the right answer
We'd be advertorial rather than honest if we skipped this, so: there are buyers for whom the production cat is simply correct.
- You want charter income. Charter management programmes are built around production brands — the operators, the bookings and the buyer for your exit are all part of one ecosystem.
- You want a warranty and a dealer. Buying new, a factory warranty and a global service network have real value, especially for first-time owners far from home waters.
- You may need to sell fast, anywhere. Brand liquidity is genuine. If your plans have a hard end date or an uncertain location, pay for it.
- Volume is the priority. If the boat is primarily a floating home for a big family and sailing performance is secondary, the production layout genuinely delivers more of what you're buying for.
- You don't want to think about provenance. Some people want a known quantity with no homework. That's a legitimate preference, and the premium buys exactly that.
Checklist: evaluating an owner-completed catamaran
If you've decided the kit route suits you, here's how we'd vet a candidate — it's the process we'd apply to our own boat:
- Establish the build story. Who moulded the components, who completed the boat, and to what standard? Factory or professional completions, and owner builds by tradespeople, lead the fleet.
- Commission a proper survey. A composite-multihull surveyor, moisture readings on decks and bridgedeck, and a close look at structural joins. Non-negotiable.
- Open the electrical panel first. Wiring quality is the fastest proxy for completion quality overall: labelled, tinned, properly fused wiring predicts a well-finished boat.
- Check the materials below the waterline. Vinylester or epoxy laminates resist osmosis far better than the cheap end of polyester construction. Ask what the hulls are actually made of.
- Demand the paper trail. Refit invoices, rig and saildrive service records, offshore certifications (NZ Cat 1 or equivalent), passage history. Documentation is the owner-completed boat's substitute for a brand name — a boat with a thick folder is a different asset from a boat with a shrug.
- Sail it. A light cat should sail in 10 knots of true wind. If it doesn't, something — weight, rig, sails, bottom — is telling you about how it's been kept.
- Price the insurance before you offer. Get an indicative quote against the survey so there are no surprises between offer and ownership.
The bottom line
Buy the production cat if you value liquidity, warranty, charter income or maximum volume — those are real advantages and worth real money. Buy the performance production cat if the budget stretches and sailing is the point. And buy the kit or owner-completed cat if you want the most actual boat — build quality, sailing ability, cruising equipment — your money can buy, and you're willing to do the homework that replaces the badge. We did the homework, sailed the result to Fiji three times, and would make the same call again.
Keep reading: our full Fusion 40 review goes deep on one kit design's strengths and checkpoints, the Fusion 40 vs Lagoon 42 comparison puts the two philosophies side by side, and buying a catamaran in New Zealand covers the practical steps once you've chosen. Or skip straight to the worked example: Mā Tori is for sale.