A new 50-metre motor yacht costs in the range of $35-45M. Annual running costs, crew, insurance, dockage, fuel, maintenance, refit amortisation, run roughly 10% of the hull value. Call it $4M a year.
Most owners we know use their yachts six weeks a year. That's $666,000 per week of hard cost, before the depreciation that will take 20-30% out of the hull over a five-year hold. By comparison, chartering an equivalent 50m at $400,000 a week, six times, costs $2.4M, almost half the running cost alone.
So when does ownership actually pencil? Three cases. First, if you genuinely use the yacht more than fourteen weeks a year, which is rarer than prospective owners expect. Second, if the yacht is a family asset held across generations, grandfather's wooden classic, now the grandson's schooner. Third, if the yacht is part of a broader personal-use-and-charter revenue model run on a Maltese or Cayman structure, in which case the accounting changes materially.
Everything else is better served by a charter contract and a good broker. We say this as a brokerage that sells yachts for a living.