Best new catamaran around 38-42 ft that doesn't take 2 years to build?

[schmidla]

Quick background: I'm 34, single, been day sailing for 3-4 years on a 1979 Pearson 28 on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. Just gave that boat away to a friend. Three years ago I started a business and have been pretty successful (no employees and totally remote) and making around $1M per year now. Became debt free late last year, at which point I also moved to Florida on the gulf coast. Now I want to get into cruising on a catamaran to live part time on and work on - won't be retiring anytime soon (but I fully plan to keep my apartment and possessions etc).

Catamaran criteria:

- New instead of used. I'll knowingly eat the depreciation, but something with a solid resale value would be a plus.

- Can handle coastal cruising, bahamas, caribbean as well as crossing an ocean. Maybe a circumnavigation one day?

- Max long term crew would be two people (myself and a girl), but for shorter stints maybe up to 4-6 people like taking my parents and/or friends on short cruises for a week or two.

- Won't take 2+ years to build. Nobody knows what the future holds, so I don't want to wait. Death or marriage could be waiting around every corner!

- If $500k is doable then awesome (Excess 11 fully loaded with cruising equipment is ~$500k). Otherwise willing to spend close to $850k or so.

- Something fun to sail is a plus, since I'm also going to be doing a large amount of day sailing.

Ideally I'd like to get a Seawind 1370 or a Balance 442, but the balance wouldn't be scheduled for delivery until 2024 and the seawind not until 2027 (both claim they plan to increase production so those dates would move up, but who knows what may happen in this crazy world in the coming years).

So, now I'm looking for something that won't take 2+ years to build. I wasn't excited about getting a "production" boat, but seems like that's going to be the only option if I want something new.

From browsing around threads, seems like:

Excess 11 (soonest delivery slot early 2022)
Leopard 42 (delivery date unsure)
Lagoon 40 or 42 (delivery date unsure)

Can these boats safely handle ocean crossings? Do they have enough storage?

I've been browsing these forums including the recent Excess thread which quickly got off topic, and seems that every person has different reasons to hate on every different type of boat. I don't need a perfect boat, just a good one that meets my criteria.

Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

[Mook1e]

If that was my budget, I would seriously look at offering $750K delivered for this:

Schionning Arrow 1360 I found on YachtWorld! https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/201...-1360-3666881/

It even has a really nice office space.

But they would probably not sell at that price.

Unfortunately, the market isn't very conducive to your plans right now.

Even with your funds, though, I wouldn't want brand new.
The issues don't go away because a yacht is new. Only have to look at the couple in the brand new Leopard 50 with all of the yanmar issues recently.

[LeeV]

That doesn’t take 2 years to build? Anything of quality will take time or have a wait list.

[Sailmonkey]

You don’t want new. You want newer used that’s been cared for and well outfitted.

[ol1970]

If your plan is to get busy sailing right away, I agree with the notion that you don’t want new, you want something a couple years old that’s been sorted out already. You’ll spend at least a year preparing a boat for full time life aboard and shaking things out.

That being said, speak directly to the dealers of the boats you are interested in, it never fails the someone drops out of their slot and you can take it. I get offered slots about once a month from various manufacturers that we are interested in.

[Chotu]

Bottom line: you can’t.

You can’t get a brand new catamaran like a brand new car because they are built to order. They aren’t on a lot in inventory.

You need the right used catamaran. Otherwise, settle in for the 2 year wait, assuming the build is finished on time.

Just buy the cats you are talking about used if you like them.

The only other Hail Mary situation might be if someone was getting a cat built ahead of you in line, but went bankrupt or dropped out of the build for some reason. You could take over that partially built boat.

[Sand crab]

There are brand new cats in stock or to be delivered soon to dealers in the US and Carib. Are you ready to buy now? For instance a new Lagoon 42 in stock in Seattle but was just contracted.
Also some nice almost new boats.

[mvmojo]

Buying a new boat to go cruising is not like buying a new car and starting off on a cross country trip! I've known more than a few folks who purchased new boats thinking they could sail away with minimal problems. One to two years later they were finally ready to go after working through all the outfitting and warranty issues that accompany a new boat. As others have opined, buy a used, well equipped and well cared for boat. You'll still have a to do list but it will be much shorter than with a new boat!

[joelhemington]

Originally Posted by schmidla

Quick background: I'm 34, single, been day sailing for 3-4 years on a 1979 Pearson 28 on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. Just gave that boat away to a friend. Three years ago I started a business and have been pretty successful (no employees and totally remote) and making around $1M per year now. Became debt free late last year, at which point I also moved to Florida on the gulf coast. Now I want to get into cruising on a catamaran to live part time on and work on - won't be retiring anytime soon (but I fully plan to keep my apartment and possessions etc).

Catamaran criteria:

- New instead of used. I'll knowingly eat the depreciation, but something with a solid resale value would be a plus.

- Can handle coastal cruising, bahamas, caribbean as well as crossing an ocean. Maybe a circumnavigation one day?

- Max long term crew would be two people (myself and a girl), but for shorter stints maybe up to 4-6 people like taking my parents and/or friends on short cruises for a week or two.

- Won't take 2+ years to build. Nobody knows what the future holds, so I don't want to wait. Death or marriage could be waiting around every corner!

- If $500k is doable then awesome (Excess 11 fully loaded with cruising equipment is ~$500k). Otherwise willing to spend close to $850k or so.

- Something fun to sail is a plus, since I'm also going to be doing a large amount of day sailing.

Ideally I'd like to get a Seawind 1370 or a Balance 442, but the balance wouldn't be scheduled for delivery until 2024 and the seawind not until 2027 (both claim they plan to increase production so those dates would move up, but who knows what may happen in this crazy world in the coming years).

So, now I'm looking for something that won't take 2+ years to build. I wasn't excited about getting a "production" boat, but seems like that's going to be the only option if I want something new.

From browsing around threads, seems like:

Excess 11 (soonest delivery slot early 2022)
Leopard 42 (delivery date unsure)
Lagoon 40 or 42 (delivery date unsure)

Can these boats safely handle ocean crossings? Do they have enough storage?

I've been browsing these forums including the recent Excess thread which quickly got off topic, and seems that every person has different reasons to hate on every different type of boat. I don't need a perfect boat, just a good one that meets my criteria.

Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

If you want a catamaran and need to go now, you'll have to settle for something late model and then decide which boat you'd really like and get on the list. Semi-custom boats offer a lot of choices the production models won't but they take awhile to build. I doubt you'd really want anything they could crank out overnight. In the current market, a later model catamaran will hold it's value well and should be easy to sell once your dream boat is ready. A good new 50' semi-custom catamaran will run you at least a million dollars and will probably require about a six month shake down period before it's really ready to travel. Most cat builders are not making boats shorter than 50' anymore - Seawind would be the exception to that. A late model will have the shake down done and be much closer to sailing than a brand new boat. I'm thinking you'd be looking at more like the $850k number for a popular late model catamaran as opposed to $500k, but it will still be worth $700k when you're done with it in two or three years. Whether the boat can safely cross oceans will depend more on you than the boat itself as most boats can do that with the proper skipper. For circumnavigation, I would think the Indian Ocean would be the biggest challenge as there's nowhere to stop if you screw something up.

[Sand crab]

Originally Posted by joelhemington

IMost cat builders are not making boats shorter than 50'

What? They all are making cats smaller than 50’. Some have new builds smaller than 40’

[HighTemp]

I know this is outside of the criteria you listed, but if I was in your position and had to do it all over again, I think that I would look for a 2 to 3 year old Lagoon 380 S2 owners. You can get one for around $250K, and use the money you would save over buying a new L42 or FP Astrea 42 for upgrades and outfitting the way you want. When you decide to sell, you will find that the depreciation curve isn't all that steep.

Depreciation on a new cat is not that bad at this exact moment in time. We could likely sell our Saona 47 for almost what we paid for it 2 years ago, only because of the long lead times for new production. Definitely a sellers market right now.

[Letterkenny]

Hard market right now. Best bet is to see if there are any dealers with hulls on order without an owner that you can take on.

[dblanken]

Have you sailed a catamaran before? It's definitely not the same as a mono-hull. For actual sailing, I personally prefer a mono-hull. Mono-hulls are generally easier to single hand as well. Catamarans are nice for the space but if it's usually just 2 of you it's not necessary. You can probably get a lot more for your money with a mono-hull. There are lots of threads on cat vs mono, but just thought I'd ask if you'd actually been on a cat.

I've heard that you really want 45 or greater cat for ocean crossing. Something about none 45 or greater have capsized. No data to back that up though. Might be something to investigate if you really want to cross oceans.

[Mook1e]

Nice small almost-new cat

https://www.catamaransite.com/catama...le/#post-13846

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by dblanken

Have you sailed a catamaran before? It's definitely not the same as a mono-hull. For actual sailing, I personally prefer a mono-hull. Mono-hulls are generally easier to single hand as well. Catamarans are nice for the space but if it's usually just 2 of you it's not necessary. You can probably get a lot more for your money with a mono-hull. There are lots of threads on cat vs mono, but just thought I'd ask if you'd actually been on a cat.

I've heard that you really want 45 or greater cat for ocean crossing. Something about none 45 or greater have capsized. No data to back that up though. Might be something to investigate if you really want to cross oceans.

Never heard of a Lagoon 380 capsizing..
The bulk of capsize are racing/sporty cats.. production boats capsizes are near unheard of since they started using the 50% beam-length ratio.