1995 Prout 45 — Stuart, FL 34994

A 1995 Prout 45 lying at Stuart, Florida, asking $179,000 through United Yacht Sales — and a first-year hull, since our record puts the model's first build in 1995. It followed the Quasar 50 out of the Essex yard, and carries Prout's argument whole: the mast stepped well aft over a cutter rig, so the sail you work most is a headsail led back to the cockpit, workable by one; heavy displacement; a low profile that keeps windage down and bridgedeck clearance with it. 45 ft of hull on 20.83 ft of beam. The yard's reputation was never speed — it was ocean miles run by two people.

Two honesty notes. There is no second Prout 45 on our shelf, so we cannot say whether $179,000 is keen. And our record carries no condition note, no survey and no inventory: on a 31-year-old cat the bridgedeck and the kit are the whole question — a surveyor's answer, not ours.

The band we can place. Among the catamarans under $200k we hold, the mid-size cruisers ask $167,400 to $199,999 and run 38–41 ft, mostly 1997–2006. At $179,000 across 45 ft this is the cheapest of them per foot — near $3,980, against $4,700–$5,000 for the 40-footers — and the oldest hull in the group. Length and build, paid for in years.

The same argument one size down is the 1998 Prout 38 in Trinidad, $52,127 under this boat:

Where the opposite instinct leads: the 2006 Leopard 40, charter-fleet lineage, a newer hull for fewer feet at $20,900 more:

And the modern version of the same brief, at nearly twice the money: a 2018 Lagoon 42 in Martinique.

But nothing else we hold puts 45 ft of short-handed ocean cat under $180,000 — this is the one to survey first: