A $200K Catamaran vs a $200K Trawler: The 10-Year Bill Nobody Shows You

$200,000. You can buy a 40-foot trawler with it, or you can buy a 38-foot catamaran. Same money on day one. But 10 years later, one of these boats has cost about $50,000 more than the other. And the reason isn't the engine. It isn't the sales either. It's something most buyers never ask about until they try to park. In our last video, we added up every dollar of owning a trawler for 10 years. Lots of you asked for the same math on a catamaran. So here it is. Same price, same harbor, same 10 years, line by line, and we'll tell you which numbers are solid and which our owner reports. First, the two boats. In the blue corner, the trawler from our last video. 40 feet, one diesel engine, $200,000. It's a model example, not one specific boat. In the yellow corner, a sailing catamaran. We picked the Lagoon 380 because about a thousand were built, so there's a real used market. it's 38 feet long and more than 21 feet wide it has two small diesel engines one in each hull and it weighs about 16,000 pounds. What does 200,000 buy in Florida we found a 2006 Lagoon 380 listed at 210,000, a 2009 asked 239,000 One 2008 boat in Panama City was listed at $215,000 and is now marked sold. So a boat from around 2008 is our catamaran. Round 1. The day you buy it. Before you buy either boat, you hire a surveyor. Guides put it around $25 per foot. Add a haul out to see the bottom and an engine survey. For the Trawler that came to about $2,600. The Catamaran has two engines to survey, not one, and its haul-out costs more, for a reason we'll get to. Our estimate for the Cat is about $3,700, about $1,100 more, then tax. Florida charges 6% on a boat, capped at $18,000. On $200,000, both boats pay $12,000, a draw. So on Day 1, the cat is already about $1,100 behind. Small. But keep watching that gap. Round 2. The slip. This is the round that decides the whole fight. Most marinas price a slip by the foot of length. A classic trawler like the Grand Banks 42 is about 14 feet wide. It fits a normal slip. A Lagoon 380 is 21 and a half feet wide. That's half again as wide as the trawler and it often won't fit between the pilings at all. So many marinas charge catamarans more. A marina in Hoboken, New Jersey writes it right into its 2026 rates. Catamarans and trimarans pay one and a half times the transient rate. A town marina in Ontario lists multi-hulls at the same one and a half times, and one city marina in Wisconsin says catamarans pay double. The catamaran company, a big broker, puts the extra at 20-50% over a similar monohull. So we used the same typical slip price as last time, $15 per foot per month, and for the cat, 50% more. The trawler pays $7,200 a year. The catamaran pays about $10,260, more than $3,000 a year, just for being wide. Remember, some marinas don't charge extra at all. We'll come back to that, because it changes the result. Round 3, insurance. In our last video, trawler owners on one forum reported paying between 0.4 and 1% of the boat's value. We used 1%, $2,000. For catamarans, we found broker figures. One broker put the average at about 1.5% with liability included. In hurricane zones like Florida, 1.5 to 1.7. The catamaran company says one to one and a half percent. So we used one and a half, three thousand dollars a year. That's about a thousand dollars more than the trawler pays. To be fair, the trawler number comes from owners and the cat number comes from brokers. A trawler kept in Florida could pay more than one percent too. Round four. Fuel. Finally a round the catamaran should win. But will it be enough? The trawler burns about three gallons an hour at seven knots at 150 engine hours a year and diesel at 635, that's about $2,900. The catamaran's engines are tiny, one listing gives about two liters an hour on one engine at four to five and a half knots, that's about half a gallon. Run both engines and call it a little over one gallon an hour, same 150 hours, same diesel price, About $1,050 a year. And that's if you never raise the sails. Every hour you sail is an hour the engines are off. So the cat saves about $1,800 a year on fuel. It's the biggest win on its side of the bill. Hold on to that number, because the next three rounds take it all back. Round five, hauling out. And here, being wide cost money again. Every boat comes out of the water for bottom paint. For the trawler, we budgeted $2,000 a year. The catamaran has two hulls to paint, and it needs a travel lift wide enough to pick it up. Not every yard has one. One Florida yard's rates, quoted by a catamaran broker, doubled once the beam went past 21 feet. $10 a foot became $20. So we added half again. $3,000 a year for the cat. That's our own assumption. And your yard may be cheaper or more expensive. Round 6. Maintenance. This is where the sailboat pays for its free wind. Last time we used one owner's records from a 42-foot twin-engine trawler, about $5,400 a year. We budgeted $5,000. We kept the same $5,000 for the cat. It has two engines too, but they're small and many jobs cost about the same. But a sailboat has two things a trawler doesn't. Sails and the rigging that holds the mast up. The catamaran company puts sails at $10,000 to $30,000 on a larger cat every five to ten years. We use the low end once in ten years. Standing rigging is usually replaced every seven to ten years. Guides put it around $6,000 to $8,000 on a 40-foot sailboat. On a boat built around 2008, that job is probably coming due while you own it. So we set aside $1,800 a year for sails and rigging. Towing is the same for both. $215 a year for an unlimited towing plan. So here's the yearly bill. The trawler costs about $19,300 a year to run. The catamaran costs about $24,300. That's 12% of its price against 10% for the trawler. Look at where the cat's money goes. The slip is 42% of it. Fuel is just 4%. The trawler owner worries about fuel. The catamaran owner should worry about the dock. Round 7. 10 years. Now we find out who's really ahead. We use the same first years fix list as last time. $10,000 a year for the first 3 years, for both boats. Now watch the two bills grow side by side. After 1 year, the cat is about $6,000 ahead in spending. After 5 years, about $26,000. After 10 years, the trawler has cost $237,750 out of pocket. The catamaran $288,940. Then add depreciation. For both boats, we use the same figure as last time. JD Power puts a typical used boat at 30-40% below its price after 10 years. We use 35%. That's $70,000 for each. So the true 10-year cost of the trawler is $307,750. And the Catamaran? $358,940, about $51,000 more. Roughly $14 a day. But that's not the end of the fight. Two numbers can flip this result. The first is the slip again. Some marinas just charge by length. Miami-Dade County's marinas, for example, list prices per foot of boat by length, with no multi-hull rule in the fee schedule. At a marina like that, the cat's slip is cheaper than the trawler's, because it's two feet shorter, and the gap over 10 years shrinks to about $17,000. But at a marina that charges double, the gap grows to about $85,000. Same boats, same owner. The dock decides. The second number is resale. Brokers say catamarans hold their value better than monohulls, dealers get smaller margins on new cats, and buyers wait in line for them. We couldn't find a reliable percentage. But look at the listings we found. Boats built around 2008 in Florida were asking about what many 2018 boats ask in Europe. That's asking prices in different markets, not proof. But it points one way. So here's the math. Every 10 percentage points of value the cat keeps is $20,000 back in your pocket. At a marina that charges extra, the cat would have to lose less than 10%, in 10 years to break even. That's hard. But at a marina that charges by length, it only has to lose less than about 26%. If the brokers are right, that's possible. What we left out? Financing, registration, a dinghy, and the cost of getting to the boat. And the biggest one, the living space. The cat gives you far more room for the same money. That's worth something, but it isn't on any bill. So which boat is cheaper? On paper, the trawler by about $50,000 over 10 years. But the real answer is written on your marina's rate sheet. Before you buy a catamaran, call the harbor you want and ask one question. How do you charge a boat that's 21 feet wide? Which side are you on? Trawler or catamaran? And if you own a cat, what does your marina charge you? Leave a comment and tell us. Want to see how far a trawler can go on one tank? Our fuel math video is right here.