Motor yachts
Motor yachts for sale
Boats you live aboard rather than go out on — full accommodation, a flybridge, and the range to take the whole thing somewhere else for the season.
A motor yacht is the point at which a boat stops being something you take out for the day and becomes somewhere you stay. Full-height headroom below, two or three staterooms with their own heads, a galley that works, a salon you would sit in by choice, and a flybridge that is usually where everyone ends up.
Hull types split the field. A planing motor yacht will cruise in the twenties and burn accordingly; a semi-displacement or full-displacement boat gives up the speed and gets back range, sea-keeping and a fuel bill that makes a long passage thinkable. Which one is right is almost entirely a question of whether you intend to move the boat or berth it.
In this brokerage's waters that usually means summers in Buzzards Bay and the Islands, winters in Palm Beach or Stuart, and the boat making the trip on its own bottom or on a ship. It is worth having that conversation before you buy, because it narrows the field faster than any spec sheet.
Who it suits
- Living aboard for weeks rather than days.
- Owners who want to move between New England and Florida seasonally.
- Guests — separate staterooms, separate heads, real air conditioning.
- Anyone who wants the helm upstairs and the view that comes with it.
Where we work
Where they run
Depth and air draft start to matter at this size — where you can get in, and what you can get under, shapes the shortlist as much as the layout does.
Builders
The yards we know in this class
The motor yacht builders Guard Yacht Group knows and works with, across both the planing and the semi-displacement halves of the type.
Common questions
What people ask before they buy
- What is the difference between a motor yacht and a downeast boat?
- Accommodation and intent. A downeast boat is a single-level cruising boat built around a deckhouse and a cockpit, usually for a couple and a weekend. A motor yacht has full standing headroom below with two or more staterooms, a flybridge and the systems to support people aboard for longer — more boat to run, and more boat to keep.
- How much crew does a motor yacht need?
- Below roughly 60 feet most owners run the boat themselves, with help for maintenance and for moving it. Above that, and particularly for a long passage, a captain becomes the normal answer. It is a running-cost question as much as a skill one and it belongs in the budget before the purchase, not after.
- Can a motor yacht do the trip between New England and Florida?
- Most can, and the route decides the boat as much as the boat decides the route. The Intracoastal Waterway is the sheltered option and caps air draft at around 64 feet and draft at around five; outside is faster and needs the range and the weather window. Guard Yacht Group works both ends of that run and can tell you which boats on your shortlist actually make it comfortably.