New to Yachting; 13 Million to spend -

Assuming you're for real here, do you want to run the boat yourself or will you have a captain and crew?

Because I doubt you'll find insurance to run a boat that size with your limited experience.

And to do what you say you want to do there is no need for a boat that big nor that expensive. Especially in this way down boat market.

You might be thinking a tad big. But it's hard to say till you really define what you want to do and where you want to go with a boat.

You could get a nice 70 - 80 foot boat that could be run by a crew of two and have a grand old time of it without breaking the bank. Or you could get a 50-65 foot boat that you and your wife could handle, after a period of training, and maybe have more fun doing your own thing with lots of privacy.

But once you get to 100' feet you are looking at a crew of at least 3 unless you don't move much with it.

Do you need a big boat because you have lots of family or friends to bring along?

You probably should think about charting a few different boats for some time to get a better feeling for your requirements and wishes.

I guess if you would prefer having crew it´s well possible to live quite comfortable on a serious displacement yacht from 75ft. up.
That would allow for a crew of 2 and an owners couple cruising and living aboard comfortably with up to 4 guests (which obviously should be guests meaning the should leave after some time).

How many people are in your party permanently? Just you and your wife?
Do you want a comfortble displacement yacht for extended cruising or a fast toy with two greedy holes in the tank sipping about 300 liters per hour?

65ft. is a reasonable size limit if the boat is to be operated by an experienced owner couple with no paid hands aboard. And it would allow for having a crew of 2.

If you want permanent crew (which you might find helpful for the first time, at least until you have some experience on your own) you might also think about something in the 75ft. to 80ft. range.

And you certainly don´t need to spend about 10 mio. for a fine preowned vessel of that size. It´s fine if you don´t mind considering 3 mio. as budget for living, cruising and boating expenses for 5 years, but you´d better exchange the numbers, at least a little.
Spending up to 3 Mio. for the boat (2 will do) and accepting that using, maintaining and keeping the boat might cost around 150.000 to 250.000 per year with 2 crew will allow you to enjoy the whole eperience. Keep about a quarter of the money you will spend on purchasing your boat readily availeable for unwanted incidents.
And find something safe you can invest the remainig money and live on the profit of that investment.
If you really want to spend the 10 mio. for the boat you might just get more boat than you need. Of course you could get something considerably beyond the 100ft. but that´s a completely differnt story in terms of running expenses. If you want to get rid of that budget do so, but I guess you don´t have to got that far to find a vessel to be happy with.
Check the boats on ************** to get an idea of what is availeable within your budget, you´d be surprised how much you can spend on 60ft and how reasonable the prices for a well kept bigger boat can be. There is plenty of choce with the money at hand.
But my best advice I can give is just take some 100.000 and charter about 4 -5 weeks on different boats to find out what is suiteable for you.

Before you blow your last dime (easy to do boating, especially with an open wallet), do a lot of reading here. Use the search feature and key in "new boater, livaboard, and any other terms you can think of relative to your situation/dream. This thread seams to come up every year or so with various amounts and sources. It's usually started by a bored 16 year old. So excuse my taking this with a grain of salt. If you are real however, do as I said. It will keep you busy for quite awhile and get you the answers to nearly all of your questions. To start you off, the cruising plan you describe can be done comfortably on a 50 footer on up. The bigger you get, the fewer places you can go and the bigger project it is to do it. With 13M I wouldn't spend more than 1.5M on a boat.

13 mio. to blow out for boating for a 5 year cruising experience...
One could wonder what size the heritge was in total.
But if Mick got 13 mio. in total then limiting the boating budget to 20% of it, initial purchase price and pocket money for a few years to keep the boat would be quite reasonable.
Sorry Mick, I know it´s a little inadequate behaviour to make that sort of speculations. However there are forums where some members would suggest not to feed the trolls when someone tells right away that he inherited big money and wants to spend these numbers on boats.
I am rather new here and I believe it´s quite nice that it seems to be a little different here.

Besides the probability of a conection between certain members and certain builders around here, is there anybody who wants to talk guy who thinks of serious long time cruising and living aboard into buying a rocket that would do 400 miles on 8000 liters of fuel and then needs the next bunkering station?
I mean my boat of 65ft. does 400 miles on 300 to 600 liters depending on the speed. While I know that´s to the other extreme it might be reasonable to think about something that´s on the better side of this range.

I´d suggest to have an adult sized vessel that´s capable of doing some serious cruising with moderate consumption and carry some toys for the fast fun.
With a dozen guests at the same time aboard you might not get away with 80ft. But then again, the ship (yes, we´re allready talking about ship with that size) will feel like a pretty lonely place when the left. Mick, you should find a balance here!

Mick, you might want to think about the quetion if the boat is supposed to host the whole family reunion for a week or if you´re fine with getting some of them a nice hotel for that time while enjoying the boat together during daytime. Then about 80ft. might be just fine. Else it would rather be a small cruise ship.
Besides that if you go beyond 12 + crew we might have to think about registration issues. You would exceed pleasure craft registration limits with that. You might think about hiring a qualified consultant/Captain guiding you through the purchasing process to have an independent third when dealing with brokers.

You start with 13M?

Geez,
Cutting into Colbert Report.
With that kind of money, I will refer you to a GREAT BROKER. He will go over all parameters and find your deal. I've known him for almost 20 years.
I just bought a 43' MY for family fun. You need someone for guidance and direction.
I can also put you onto a 92' that is IMMACULATE, I know as I interviewed as Capt. years ago, know the owner and history...and you'll have 12M in the bank.
ATB-
Dan

Take a look at the Vicem Classic 92 (in fact they are 96ft. over all), perhaps you might like that as well. There are two preowned ones for sale (2ears old) for 4.3mio USD.

Westport makes a nice boat for sure. And for that price you could could get a nice used Westport 112' or a Crescent 115' for that matter. If you want the extra space.

And there are a number Westports to charter. If you end up interested in chartering let me know if you'd like and I can direct you to some nice boats and crews.

I wouldn't walk down the same side of the street as a broker at this point. Get an education first. That way you can buy instead of being sold. You can see the persuasion already getting started. Stating numbers like 13M is like dropping chum. 1st the little fish appear and then the sharks in very short order.

+1
Charter a number of different boats first, definitely. Experience first hand what might fit your idea of yachting, learn about fuel consumption and seakeeping abilities, get an idea of life aboard.

Great advice above. Research, research, charter, research, and charter some more! THEN start looking around for a great broker. Beware: everybody knows a good broker and there are tons out there but unfortunately there are only a handful who have been successfully doing big boats for more than two decades that really know their stuff.

I would imagine that you will probably be comfortable in something in the 80-100' range with 2-3 crew. Because it will be just you and the wife 98% of the time, it would not be wise to buy a boat that can handle 12-13 family members plus you and your crew because you will have to pay for and maintain that much more boat all year long waiting for the one big family vacation. It would be best to rent a beach house/condo/hotel room(s) for the overflow guests near where the boat will be based for the duration of the trip. You would be surprised how small a 120' boat can become with 20 people on board 24/7 for a week or two. Trust me, I know this from personal experience!

You should certainly buy a newer boat, but not brand new. Brand new you will lose a big chunk of your investment immediately, so a 1-3 yr old boat would give you the new look/feel/smell of a brand new boat with full warranties yet someone else has already absorbed the big "new boat" depreciation hit. Beyond that, I recommend fiberglass construction strictly from a maintenance standpoint. Aluminum corrodes in saltwater environments and therefore requires more maintenance than a comparable fiberglass boat. Paint jobs are one of the more expensive and time consuming tasks in boat ownership and even if the cost is not as much of a problem for you being without the use of your boat for months at a time would certainly be at the very least inconvenient. A professional, high quality paint job can often last twice as long on a fiberglass boat as opposed to an aluminum boat. Pacific Mariner/Westport are one of the more respected builders who deal exclusively in fiberglass construction so you are already headed down the right path.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Beeing the second owner has definitely some advantages. The first owner will make 2 considerable contributions to your pleasure with boating, he´ll sponsor your yacht by making a serious downpayment for making it more affordable for you and he will take care of your new boat like it was his baby and take care of all the annoying small and bigger warranty issues before he hands your boat over to you. And he might even install some additional nice extras before.
You know, beeing a highly complex product that is (semi-) custom made, big boats are almost certainly beta versions on delivery, only difference ist the yards commitment and care. But no boat is perfect from the beginning. Leave the pain of taking care of sometimes embarrassing numbers of tiny problems to someone else. Boats are very different from cars in that way.