There is definitely satisfaction in the lofting process, but it comes at a price— time. I’m happy to see that Kyle is leaning toward the kit, albeit for plywood sourcing issues.
@Kyle Ibsen— If you’re still considering a scratch build, do this. Buy a set of plans, and a sheet of underlayment from Lowes. Select a sheet with a variety of parts on it. Lay them out on the underlayment, and cut them out. Keep in mind that you should always cut wide of the line, and sand down to it. Note the amount of time you’ve spent doing this, and multiply this by the amount of parts it will take to build your Marissa. (And the Marissa contains a lot of parts!). If you buy a kit, all you need to do is sort through the stack to find the correct part. Now, stand back and compare the satisfaction factor of measuring and cutting process to the time saved. Only you can decide which is the way to go. Doing this process does take extra time, but you can use those underlayment parts for full-size patterns, if you go with a scratch build.
By the way, most of my boats were scratch builds. My preference would be to do a kit if there are many parts (such as a Marissa) or the shapes are complicated (such as in glued lap construction).