W172

• 52.5 m LOA (172 ft 3 in), 9.39 m beam
• 496 GT ITC, ABS classed, MCA compliant
• Twin Caterpillar 3516E diesels, 3,386 hp each
• 19 knots cruise, 21.5 knots top, about 5,000 nm at 12 knots
• 12 guests in 6 ensuite staterooms, main deck master with private balcony
• Crew of 11 including bridge deck captain's cabin
• Three gyro stabilizers at anchor plus Naiad fins underway
• Beach club with fold-down aft quarters and garage for a 22 ft tender

A flagship built like a production run

The W172 succeeds the W164, the 50-meter series that ran from 2006 to 2020 and put around a dozen big Westports on the water. The yard announced its new flagship at the end of 2019 as the biggest fiberglass build in its history, then did what it always does before laminating a first hull: it engineered the tooling, process flow and systems patterning for an entire series, using the three-dimensional structural software found in aviation programs.

The lineage matters. Westport credits the advanced hull design thinking of naval architect William Garden and the styling of Donald Starkey, the pairing behind its earlier tri-decks, carried forward by the yard's in-house naval architects and engineers. The first hull took shape at Port Angeles on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, the facility reserved for the largest builds, and is offered through the builder's own Fort Lauderdale sales operation as a 2026 boat.

Volume where an owner feels it

Twelve guests sleep in six ensuite staterooms, led by a full-width master forward on the main deck with his and her baths and a private balcony over the water. A king-bed VIP sits midships on the bridge deck, a genuine luxury at this length, with two further king staterooms aft on the lower deck, a king forward to port and a twin forward to starboard.

The service side is scaled for real hospitality: crew quarters for eleven, with a captain's cabin on the bridge deck and five crew staterooms forward, each with private facilities. At 496 gross tons ITC the W172 sits just under the 500 GT regulatory line, which keeps manning, class and compliance simpler than a 52-meter profile usually implies. ABS class and MCA compliance are standard.

Fifty-two meters of American flagship, engineered with the same molds-and-method discipline as the hundred-plus Westports that came before it.

Speed when you want it, range when you need it

Power comes from a pair of Caterpillar 3516E diesels producing 3,386 horsepower each, turning five-blade propellers through ZF gears for a 19-knot cruise and a 21.5-knot top speed. Throttled back to 12 knots, the 62,450-liter fuel capacity stretches into transoceanic legs of roughly 5,000 nautical miles, enough to reposition between the Caribbean and the Mediterranean on the owner's calendar.

Stability is engineered for both halves of a yachting day. Underway, Naiad hydraulic fins driven off the main engines steady the ride. At anchor, three electric gyro stabilizers hold the yacht still with no fins working the water, so the beach club and sundeck stay comfortable in a rolling bay. Three 99 kW generators carry the hotel load, with twin watermakers producing thousands of gallons a day.

A beach club open on three sides

The stern is where the W172 shows its generation. Fold-down aft quarters open the beach club to the water on three sides, turning the transom into a sea-level terrace of real size. Behind it, the garage stows a 22-foot diesel tender handled by a 5,000-pound crane, with a 13-foot rescue RHIB and additional cranes serving the foredeck and sundeck for toys and rescue duties.

Through the interior, Westport's own cabinet and carpentry shop delivers the joinery, and the technology package is current: Starlink high-speed internet, Iridium satellite backup, AV over IP entertainment in every cabin and whole-vessel lighting control from iPads. Navigation runs on commercial-grade Furuno S-band and X-band radar arrays, the kind of fit-out captains trust on working ships.

Charter logic, resale logic

Westport says plainly that the W172 was designed with flexibility and charter in mind. Twelve-guest certification, six true suites, a crew of eleven and gyro-stabilized comfort at anchor are exactly what the top of the charter market pays for, so an owner who wants to offset running costs has a credible commercial story from delivery day.

The exit story is just as considered. A flagship from a series builder carries sisterships, standardized systems and a survey record the whole brokerage market understands, advantages that one-off 52-meter yachts cannot offer. With more than 160 Westports afloat and a factory-backed brokerage and service operation in Fort Lauderdale, the W172 extends a resale case the brand has been proving for decades, and it does so at the very top of the American market, where genuine flagship supply is thin and demand from experienced owners is not.

Für wen: An owner stepping up to 500 GT-class volume and twelve-guest capability who wants flagship scale with series-build predictability, USD pricing and American support.