Every catamaran for sale has something wrong with it. Ours does; they all do. The question is never "is she perfect" — it is whether you know what is wrong, whether the price knows it too, and whether any of it is the kind of wrong you should not buy at any price.

Ten questions about the boat you are looking at. Answer honestly, and notice how often the honest answer is "I don't know" — because that, more than any single fault, is what this quiz is really measuring.

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The survey deal-breaker quiz

Think of one specific boat while you answer. If you are between boats, pick the one you keep going back to look at.

Deal-breaker meter PROCEED WALK

Nothing answered yet

A Yanmar diesel engine and its hoses and wiring installed in a catamaran engine bay
One of two. The service log is the only way to know whether the second one got the same attention as the one the seller shows you.

Why "don't know" scores worse than "no"

A "no" is information. Wet decks, old rigging, a tired battery bank — each of those has a cost, and once you know the cost you can decide whether it comes off the price or whether the boat is not for you. A "don't know" has no cost yet, which feels comfortable and is not. It means you are about to make the biggest purchase of the decade on an assumption, and every experienced buyer we know has a story about the assumption that turned out to be wrong.

Three of the ten are different. Undisclosed damage, a title that does not check out, and structural moisture are not costs to negotiate — they are reasons to leave, and the quiz treats them that way no matter how well the other seven go.

Five things the quiz can't ask

  • Who did the refit? Owner-built and owner-refitted cats vary more between individual boats than between builders. A beautiful finish tells you about the finisher, not the wiring behind it.
  • Is she certified for offshore, or just "capable" of it? NZ Cat 1 or the equivalent is a list of specific, inspectable items. "She's been to Fiji" is a story.
  • What is the seller's reason? Life changes are honest and common. "Just fancied a change" from someone who has owned her for eleven months is worth a longer conversation.
  • What does she cost to own? Insurance, haul-out, moorings and the two-of-everything problem. A boat you can afford to buy and cannot afford to keep is the commonest mistake on the water.
  • Have you slept aboard? One night at anchor tells you more about a layout than a week of brochures. Ask; a confident seller will say yes.
Nav station of a catamaran with chart plotter, breaker panel and VHF
Behind every breaker panel is the question the quiz keeps asking: who installed this, when, and is there a piece of paper that says so?

Read this bit before you act on a score

This is ten questions and a needle, not a survey. It cannot see the boat, it does not know the price, and it will happily say "proceed" to a boat with a problem it never asked about. Its only job is to show you the gap between what you know and what you are assuming — before that gap is a problem with your name on the title. Nothing you type here leaves your browser.

The full walk-through is in the Catamaran Buyer's Pack: survey-day checklists with real tick-boxes, the questions to put to the seller in writing, the NZ Cat 1 list and the landed-cost worksheet. It is the paperwork we wish someone had handed us.

Keep reading: the mechanics of an offer, a survey and a settlement are in buying a catamaran in New Zealand; why individual boats vary so much is in owner-built vs production catamarans; and what the money actually looks like across the market is in the best cruising catamarans under $500k. Or meet the boat herself — Mā Tori, our Fusion 40 catamaran for sale.