This is irrelevant to the whole sword discussion but please.. make those bowls in the kit useful or replace them.. I'd rather have extra food than empty bowls.
This sounds good, but the first two should be no more than two in quantity, and there should only be a boat if others are allowed to find or craft one again. If we decided to give donators the boats, we would have to make a decision. Should we bring boats back to chests, or have small stacks (1-3) of wood planks in their place? This would only be for Arena 1, of course; Arenas 2-4 would either have a single plank, or nothing at all. In Arena 1, having a boat to start off would be a key advantage in order to escape kit users. Still, even having a couple extra planks could cause crafting a bow to be far easier. These could become four sticks, which could become the materials of a bow should a player cut down the cobwebs found in the arena. There's a convenient volleyball net on one of the islands, which provides twice the string needed to form a bow. There's also at least three crafting tables in that arena also, so one doesn't have to go to spawn.
This is a step in the right direction. My only request: make it as powerful as possible without upsetting the "balance" or whatever-have-you with the other kits.