W130

The series that defined the American 40-meter

Westport introduced the W130 at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show in 2001, pairing naval architecture by William Garden with exterior styling by Taylor Olson and the yard's in-house interiors. The market answered immediately and kept answering: trade press counted 33 hulls delivered by mid-2011, the 38th hull arrived in October 2013 with two more due the following year, and new W130s were still being completed as late as 2023.

The design was restyled and updated around 2010 into what the yard marketed as the 40 m generation, with refreshed lines and upgraded systems on the same proven platform. Production only ended when Westport moved the size bracket to the new W135 raised pilothouse, which means the W130 retired as a current, continuously developed product, and the fleet on the water reflects every stage of that evolution.

Five staterooms and a crew of seven

Ten guests sleep in five ensuite staterooms. The master is on the main deck with a king bed and separate his and her baths sharing a central shower, the classic on-deck arrangement that keeps the owner a few steps from the saloon and the aft deck. Two equal VIP suites with centerline king beds sit aft on the lower deck, with two twin-bed guest staterooms amidships, each with private facilities.

Crew quarters take seven: a captain's cabin to port, two crew cabins forward with four berths, and an engineer's cabin aft with a double berth and private head, positioned by the machinery he looks after. The tri-deck arrangement adds an upper sky lounge to the main saloon and formal dining for ten, and the full walkaround side decks, a very American priority, keep crew circulation off the guest spaces. Every hull's joinery and stonework came out of Westport's own cabinet shop, in solid woods and veneers selected with the owner.

More than forty hulls of the same 40-meter tri-deck, delivered across two decades, make the W130 the most liquid American superyacht ever built.

Twenty-four knots, ocean legs at twelve

Later hulls run a pair of MTU 16V2000 M96L diesels of 2,600 hp each through ZF 5050A gears, while earlier boats of the restyled generation carried 2,735 hp MTUs. Either way the performance envelope is the same one that sold forty-plus hulls: a genuine 20-knot cruise and 24 knots flat out from a semi-displacement composite hull.

Fuel capacity of 36,075 liters supports long-range work at displacement speeds, with trade reviews putting realistic legs beyond 2,500 nautical miles at 10 to 12 knots. At 333 gross tons ITC the W130 carries ABS class with an A1 commercial yachting notation and an MCA Red Ensign compliance statement, so charter registration and experienced-crew recruitment are straightforward.

Systems specified like a working ship

Stabilization underway comes from Naiad 525 fins with fly-by-wire control, powered off the central hydraulics for zero-speed duty at anchor, and recent hulls added a pair of VEEM VG120 gyros for fin-free stillness in a rolling bay. Two 99 kW Northern Lights generators with seamless power transfer carry the hotel load, and twin watermakers deliver 3,700 gallons a day.

The deck kit is equally serious: a 3,000-pound Nautical Structures davit for the 17-foot AB tender with its 115 hp outboard, a double-telescoping wheelchair-capable passerelle, twin Furuno radars, and Novec clean agent fire suppression in the engine room. Frameless chemically strengthened glazing is bonded directly to the structure, and the Alexseal Snow White finish is the fleet's visual signature.

Why the brokerage market loves it

No 40-meter series offers more sisterships, and that changes the ownership math at both ends. Surveyors know the boat, captains know the boat, and the parts commonality across dozens of hulls keeps maintenance predictable through the American service network. When it is time to sell, the market comps are real and recent, which is why W130s trade faster than one-off yachts of the same age.

With the W135 now occupying the new-build slot, the W130 has become the value route into a 40-meter Westport, with well-kept examples spanning two decades of delivery years and a wide band of USD price points. For a first superyacht owner who wants ten-guest capability, a crew of seven and no experimentation risk, the case is about as clean as brokerage gets.

Buying a used W130: what the two generations mean

The W130 was never a single static design. Westport ran two distinct generations across its twenty-two year, forty-plus hull production life, and the difference matters more to a used-boat buyer than the model year alone suggests. Early hulls, built 2000 to 2008, carry twin MTU 12V4000 M90 engines at 2,735 hp each, a simpler electrical and deck-hardware package, and, per an experienced captain describing the type on the YachtForums owners' board, can be run comfortably with six crew, seven if actively chartering. The restyled generation from around 2009 switched to the lighter MTU 16V2000 M96L at 2,600 hp each, a broadly similar top speed, but added glass guardrails, more teak decking, larger sundecks and more onboard systems, all of which the same captain describes as making the newer boats a lot more work to crew and maintain despite the lower-horsepower engines.

That split shows up in asking prices: early hulls trade roughly USD 6.5 to 11 million, later hulls USD 14.6 to 19.5 million, based on current YachtWorld listings. But condition and refit history swing the number more than the generation line does. Plan A, a 2007 hull, needed a refit exceeding USD 4.3 million in 2014 just to stay presentable, plus further work in 2023, before selling at a last ask of USD 8.9 million, brokered by JD Ducanes of Reel Deal Yachts and John Varga of Westport Brokerage. In practice the real due-diligence question on a used W130 is not which generation but what has actually been reinvested in that specific hull. Engines and gears are durable and well proven across both generations; teak, glasswork, air conditioning and interior soft goods on a twenty-plus-year-old GRP hull are where the six and seven figure surprises tend to live.

Para quién es: A brokerage buyer who wants a proven 40-meter with ten-guest capability, deep sistership comps and predictable running costs, at a USD entry point the new-build market cannot match.