A meticulously upgraded owner's-version catamaran in Charleston, ready to trade the dock lines for trade winds.
Few mid-sized catamarans hit the sweet spot between comfort, stability, and passage-making performance quite like the Leopard 45 — and S/V Minowa, a 2020 owner’s-version hull now lying in Charleston, South Carolina, may be one of the more thoughtfully equipped examples on the water. In a walkthrough with YachtSite, broker Michael Wilson of The Multihull Company steps through a boat that has been methodically prepared for extended bluewater cruising, from her sail wardrobe down to her lithium bank.
Sailing systems built for real miles
Minowa carries a new North Sails mainsail alongside her genoa and an asymmetrical spinnaker flown from a retractable bowsprit — a useful trick in light air. New running rigging leads aft to the sports helm, where two powered and one manual Lewmar winches make single-handed sailing genuinely manageable. Mast height sits around 70 feet, supporting roughly 1,300 square feet of sail area. Under power, twin low-hour 45 hp Yanmars turning SD60 sail drives push her efficiently, and the engine rooms are, as Wilson notes, exceptionally clean — the sort of detail that tends to reveal an owner’s overall care.
Off-grid ready
The energy system is where Minowa really separates herself from a stock boat. In 2024, her owners had 2,280 watts of solar and a 1,280 Ah lithium bank professionally installed in Charleston, tied together through a Victron MultiPlus inverter with touchscreen monitoring. A 9 kW Northern Lights generator and the Yanmar alternators back it all up. For connectivity and safety, she carries a full Raymarine electronics suite with radar and autopilot, Vesper AIS, an IsatPhone 2, and newly installed Starlink.
Living aboard
Robertson and Caine’s volume management is on full display here. The open cockpit-and-salon layout, linked to the bow lounge through Leopard’s signature forward door and up to the sky lounge above, gives the 45 the feel of a considerably larger yacht. The cockpit adds extra refrigeration, a sunset lounger, a Magma grill, scuba tank racks, fishing rod holders, and synthetic teak underfoot. Inside, panoramic glazing lights the salon, the galley offers a three-burner Eno stove and Vitrifrigo drawer fridge-freezer, and a forward-facing nav station handles route planning on a 9-inch plotter.
The owner’s version dedicates the entire starboard hull to a suite with an aft semi-walk-around bed, midship workstation, generous storage, a large vanity, a full shower, and a washer-dryer combo. The port hull houses two guest cabins with en-suite heads. Ground tackle is a 73-pound Rocna on a Lewmar windlass, and a Spectra watermaker keeps the tanks topped up.
Where she sits in the market
Leopard 45s have been trading steadily. Recent site data shows six sold in the past 24 months at a median price of $567,250, with a median time to sell around 181 days. Eight are currently listed, asking between $298,000 and $759,000.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Recent solds (24 mo) | 6 |
| Median sold price | $567,250 |
| Median days to sell | ~181 |
| Active listings | 8 |
| Asking range | $298,000–$759,000 |
| Median asking | $397,000 |
| Median Sold | $567,250 | |||
| Median Asking | $397,000 | |||
| Low Asking | $298,000 | |||
| High Asking | $759,000 |
For a buyer who wants a genuinely turnkey catamaran with the redundancy of a larger yacht, Minowa is worth a closer look. Michael Wilson is showing her by appointment in Charleston.