MCY 96

Three Hulls Sold Before Anyone Outside Monte Carlo Had Seen Her

Monte Carlo Yachts staged the reveal as a private event for owners inside Venice, then gave the model its full public debut weeks later at the 2017 Cannes Yachting Festival. Boat International's launch coverage quoted the yard's own management confirming the first three units had already been sold, evidence of real dealer and owner demand ahead of any independent review or boat-show reaction. Barche a Motore's later feature on the model summed up the design brief bluntly: the 96 is styled to look like a scaled-down MCY 105, the same yet different, sharing the flagship's Portuguese bridge bow and full-length side decks rather than reading as an unrelated smaller model.

Nine years on, the model's status is oddly unresolved: YachtBuyer's own listing dates the production run 2017 to 2023 and treats her as discontinued, yet Monte Carlo Yachts' current model range page still shows the MCY 96 in 2026 alongside the 66, 70, 76, 80, 86 and 105, with the same technical specification as at launch. Whether that means new hulls remain buildable to order or the page is simply a legacy listing the yard has not removed is not stated anywhere this research found, which is itself worth knowing before a buyer assumes a new one can still be ordered.

Nuvolari Lenard's Styling, Scaled Down From the 105

The design studio behind every Monte Carlo Yachts model since the brand's founding gave the 96 a raised, jaunty bow they call a Portuguese bridge, and two full-length side decks running the whole hull, details Barche a Motore highlighted as carrying the flagship's presence into a size bracket more owners can actually buy. A transparent bulwark forward lines up with the VIP cabins below so guests get a clear sea view even from the lower deck, a detail shared with the 105's own layout logic.

Where she differs from the 105 is mostly scale and flexibility rather than substance: at 29.26 metres she runs just under three metres shorter than the 32.26 metre flagship, and Monte Carlo Yachts offered the interior in three, four or five cabin configurations at launch against the 105's more fixed layout, letting an owner trade a formal VIP suite for an extra guest cabin or a larger galley depending on how the boat will be used.

Three hulls sold before the public even saw her, on a boat whose own test pilot found a rock with the propeller inside her first cruising season.

Performance: A Claimed 27 Knots, a Trial That Found 24.5

The standard powerplant is a pair of MTU 16V 2000 M86 diesels at 2,200 hp each, driving through ZF gearboxes to five-blade propellers, per Yachting Magazine's technical report; buyers could also specify a lighter pair of MAN V12-1900 diesels at 1,900 hp for roughly 22 to 23 knots instead. Testing the MTU-powered boat, Motor Boat and Yachting's Alan Harper found an easily driven, moderate-vee hull that stayed composed from 16 knots all the way to 22, but topped out at 24.5 knots rather than the shipyard's published estimate, and noted speed dropped off markedly in hard, fast turns given the hull's roughly 100 tonne loaded displacement.

Fuel figures from the same MTU-standard trial: about 79 US gallons per engine per hour at a 20 knot cruise, working out to roughly 330 nautical miles of range at that speed, extending to about 700 nautical miles at 12 knots and 1,000 nautical miles at a 10 knot economical cruise. On an 11,000 litre fuel tank that gives a genuinely long-legged cruising boat at low speed, even if her top-end performance undershoots the brochure number; a buyer who plans to run her hard rather than potter should discount the 27 knot figure and plan around what an independent trial actually recorded.

Living Aboard: Owner's Suite Amidships, Three to Five Cabins Below

The raised-pilothouse layout keeps the owner's stateroom on the main deck rather than below, at around 266 square feet, with three or four further guest cabins on the lower deck depending on the configuration chosen at order, plus quarters for five to six crew across three cabins. The main-deck salon runs to about 412 square feet, and Monte Carlo Yachts also offered a forward galley option on the main deck near the cockpit for owners who wanted the crew closer to the entertaining spaces rather than isolated below.

Outside, the flybridge measures just over 650 square feet with a retractable sunroof covering about 480 square feet of that area, and the bow lounge and foredeck terrace add more than 270 square feet of further outdoor space, giving her genuinely large open-air decks for a boat under 30 metres. Monte Carlo Yachts states a build time of around five months per hull once an order is placed, fast for a semi-custom yacht at this size, though that figure is the yard's own and this research found no independent build-time report to confirm it.

What the Market Says: A Prop Strike, a Soft Top-Speed Miss, and Steady Resale

Alan Harper's 2019 trial for Motor Boat and Yachting found the test boat, delivered in time for a month-long Mediterranean cruise out of Malta, had picked up damage to one blade of five on one propeller from a low-speed grounding, enough to cause vibration detectable only in hard turns rather than a serious fault. Separately, Barche a Motore's own review noted the carbon hardtop vibrated excessively at maximum revolutions, a fault Monte Carlo Yachts itself acknowledged at the time with corrections planned, and the MBY review flagged that the tender garage reduces engine-room headroom to practically zero, a real working-access complaint rather than a cosmetic one.

On price, the only public figure at launch was Barche a Motore's November 2017 estimate of EUR 9 million excluding VAT, never confirmed by the yard itself. Nine years on, four pre-owned MCY 96 hulls were listed in 2026, built between 2018 and 2021, priced from about USD 6.2 million to 7 million; YachtBuyer's Market Watch puts average time on market at 487 days with asking prices easing roughly 7.2 percent from their original figure, a slower, softer resale pattern than some rivals but still genuine turnover for named hulls including Mia, Esmeralda of the Seas and Rocco, the last of which had a EUR 525,000 asking-price cut reported directly.

Pour qui: An owner who wants MCY 105 flagship styling and a full-beam main-deck owner's suite at a more attainable size, and who plans to cruise at a relaxed 16 to 22 knots rather than chase her rated 27 knot top end.