It is Friday afternoon off Bimini, the water is flat, and there are six of you aboard. Someone is reading on the foredeck. Two people are getting dinner together in the galley without being cut off from the cockpit. Whoever is skippering is up on the flybridge watching the light change. Three separate places to be, on a 40-foot boat — that is the Bali Catspace, and it is the whole reason the model exists.
What ends a good evening at anchor is running out of somewhere else to go. The Catspace answers that vertically rather than by adding length: it puts a flybridge on a 40'5" platform, spreads 757 sq ft of usable deck across three levels, and gives every cabin below its own head.
Who It's For
This is a boat for people who cruise with a full crew aboard and have learned that what makes that work is having several rooms, not one big one. If your weekends involve friends and family rather than solo passages, and if you spend more time at anchor than beating to windward, the layout is aimed squarely at you.
It works for small charter operations too. Four cabins and four heads means two couples aboard with nobody queuing for a bathroom, which is the detail guests notice.
It is not the boat for a sailor who wants a responsive helm and a big sail plan to trim. The rig is set up for ease of handling, and the flybridge adds height and windage that you plan around when you are manoeuvring in a tight marina. That is the cost of the design decisions that make it so liveable at rest.
Design and Layout
The flybridge is the headline, and it is what the Catsmart below it does without. It is not simply a raised helm station: it carries seating and sightlines over the whole boat and into an anchorage, so the person steering is above the coachroof and still in the conversation. On a calm day it is the best seat aboard.
The up-and-over aft door is the other defining piece. It takes the boat from open to closed in seconds. Raised, the saloon and the aft cockpit are one continuous room; lowered, the same glass makes her a boat you can cruise at any latitude and in any season. Large sliding side windows and a forward window that tilts open handle light and ventilation without forcing you to choose between the two.
Forward, Bali replaces the trampoline with a rigid foredeck lounge. It stays dry, it holds cushions, and it is safe for children and for guests who are not confident on boats. Note how you get there: the forward lounge is reached along the side deck. There is no saloon-to-foredeck door on this model — that starts at the 4.2 — and it is worth knowing before you order rather than after.
Below, both layouts give every cabin its own head: three and three, or four and four. On a 40-foot boat that is the specification detail worth noticing, because it is what makes the Catspace work for two couples cruising together as readily as for a family.
On the Water
Draft is 3'10" (1.19 m) and beam is 21'5" (6.55 m). Those two numbers shape where and how you use her — shallow enough for the thin-water anchorages, wide enough to stay level once everyone moves to one side at anchor.
Under sail she carries 807 sq ft as standard and 1,087 sq ft of maximum upwind area, on a hull drawn by Lasta Design Studio with deliberately low wetted surface. Auxiliary power is a pair of 21 hp diesels as standard with a larger option offered; if you cruise where the current runs hard or you expect to motor a lot, the bigger pair is the box to tick.
Empty weight is 20,838 lbs against 28,404 lbs at maximum load, on 106 gal of fuel and 201 gal of water. What you load matters on a boat carrying those tanks.
At sea trial, take her in and out of a berth from the flybridge helm rather than from the dock, and ask for observed fuel burn at your intended cruising rpm in writing so you can work your own passage numbers off the 106 gal tankage.
Living With It
Two practical points, both consequences of the design rather than defects in it. First, an open layout with large glass means more seals and more openings, so make the door mechanism, the sliding windows and the tilting forward window part of every routine inspection. Second, four heads means four marine toilets and four shower drains to service; that is what the privacy of the layout costs you in servicing, and it belongs in your maintenance rhythm from the start rather than turning up in year three.
CE certification is A: 10 / B: 12 / C: 24 / D: 28 persons, and cold storage runs to 265 liters of fridge and freezer, which is what makes provisioning for a full boat practical.
Where to Start
The Catspace is a 40-footer arranged around the count of places to sit — foredeck, cockpit, flybridge — with a below-decks layout in which no cabin shares a head. If that is the problem you are trying to solve, few boats at this length solve it as directly.
If you would rather have the helms aft at deck level and a simpler boat underneath, the Catsmart is the one to look at. If the saloon-to-foredeck door is what you actually want, step up to the 42'2" 4.2.
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