What Motor Yacht Brand Is The Most Mechanically Reliable?

To assist us in answering can you please provide a little additional information as all we know now is you're a musician. What is your boating experience? Is it enough to prepare you to operate this boat? What do you intend to operate with the solar system? How long will you be away from shore at a time? Is this year round? In what area do you intend to boat? Will you need air conditioning or heat or both?

I don't think there's a single "most mechanically reliable motor yachts between 50 and 75 ft" builder.

Maybe imagine a list, somewhere between 20 and 100 (?) builders of "mostly reliable" motor yachts. With individual focus possible. Locally or semi-locally produced? Built anywhere in the world? Steel, aluminum, or GRP? Et cetera...

-Chris

You are tying to compare boats to cars and it doesn’t really work in part because boats used mostly off the shelf components, not made by the builders. Things like engines, generators, pumps, air con, watermakers, fixtures, electronics etc are not made by the builder.

yes they are installed and wired and plumbed by the boat builder and some do it better than others but it is hard to say brand A is more reliable than brand B.

the most critical part is accessibility for maintenance. Engine room layout and system access will make maintenance a breeze or a nightmare and greatly affect costs and reliability

that said we all have our preferences. I prefer Cat or cummins engines, northern lights generators, non Italian electrical systems, Flagship air con,

As to your solar question, you said 600w of power to provide equivalent power to a gen. The average gen on a boat between 50 and 70 will be 15 to 20 KW....

The newest one

Someone else's.

Nowadays with leds lights have become a non issue power wise.

your biggest draw will be refrigeration (fridge freezer and ice maker) as well as air con. On average a 60 footer will use 5 to 7 kw of power water from the gen or shore power. Where do you get this idea that 900W of solar will run 5 to 7kw of loads?

And you've still said nothing about your boating experience.

As Pascal has indicated you will not be able to operate all you plan on solar alone. 900 watts of solar will require at least 45 square feet which you won't have on the roof of such a boat, but even so will not be enough for the refrigeration and the air conditioning. Once you add air conditioning, you require a generator.

As to being able to single hand it, we don't yet know you're trained and experienced to handle any size.

Our boat needs a 21.5kW generator to handle the 5 air conditioners, water heater, fridges and freezer, electric galley, battery chargers, and a few other light-load odds and ends. Replacing all of that with solar will be a challenge.

-Chris

No way to have a boat self-sufficient with aircon running without a big genset. That's even beyond unrealustic fantasy.
Of course you gain independence from aditinal electrics power e.g. generated by an adult-sized generator If you trade in some conviniences. However, If you want to run greedy appliances you'll have to feed them.

They may have been using "yacht" in the British sense, where every sailboat over about 10' long (?) is called a "yacht." It could well be true that 900 W of solar may power a 25' sailboat's electrical systems... which might be limited to mostly 12VDC nav equipment.

Our boat is toward the short end of your size range, and it's closer to a sportfish design than a motor yacht... so I suspect our kW sizing is even lower than what you'd need for what you're considering.

Can't speak to panel fitting versus yacht models. Don't know that market at all.

Were it me and FWIW, I'd be making a list of other requirements -- not so much to do with solar power possibilities -- that I might need in a boat. Number of staterooms? Heads? Accommodation configuration? Max depth? Flying bridge? Or not? Tender capabilities? Et cetera....

Then adapt (or not) solar as best I could once I've got my "house" squared away.

-Chris

Congratulations on that.
Best way to make a big pile of money into a small pile is having a boat. But its been worth it to me !!

Your beautiful yacht will be completely be covered in solar panels. Not aesthetically pleasing in my opinion.

what happen when a storm sets in for a couple of days and the sunshine is no more for three or four days straight?
What about high winds that could pose a problem to ripping off and damaging panels.

you’re gonna need some sort of generator for back up.

If you want to live on the yacht like you’re camping you could probably do just solar panels.

if you want to live on a yacht with all the comforts and then some of home you’re gonna need a generator.

All this solar power I would assume it’s going to require a boatload of batteries in the bilge.

Then some sort of huge inverter to convert DC power to AC power…

I guess it’s possible if you choose not to have any air conditioning or hot water heater you might be able to do it with just solar panels.

DC Refrigeration, led lights throughout, gas or alcohol stove, water heated up by the sun etc…
What kind of battery charger would you use to make sure the batteries stay up fully charged not sure if they make a DC solar powered battery charger.

then there’s Maintenance on a yacht what happens when you start getting leaks on the cabin top on the deck etc. you had to remove the solar panels to get to the deck and the problem to fix?

All boats, yachts, love to leak. Especially above the water line.

your post is intriguing and is something to definitely consider just not sure how it can be done.