The short answer: a properly executed commercial-vessel conversion — what we call an Expedition Restomod (Restore & Modify) — typically runs $15–25 million all-in for a 60–80 metre platform: $3–8 million to acquire the vessel and $12–20 million for the rebuild. A new-build of equivalent capability costs $80–110 million and takes roughly twice as long to reach sea trials.
These are working ranges from current Xplorer engagements, not brochure figures. I have spent twenty-five years inside commercial and superyacht shipyards — Blohm+Voss, CRN, Camper & Nicholsons — and the figures below are the ones I defend across a survey table.
Compare that with the new-build market: any clean-sheet expedition yacht of serious capability now lives north of $80 million, and the white-yacht equivalent — lighter plate, no meaningful ice class, half the range — runs $95–140 million. The hull you are buying in a Restomod is already built, already classed, and already proven in the North Sea or the Southern Ocean. You are paying for the transformation, not for convincing a naval architect that an exploration yacht needs ice plating.
Full line-item comparison — ORCA Restomod versus equivalent new-build — is on the Thesis page. Detailed budgets supplied under NDA.
A 78-metre DNV ice-class research-vessel platform, available for acquisition at $6 million, with a Grant Maughan–designed ORCA Restomod package costed at $19 million — $25 million all-in, eighteen months from signed acquisition to sea trials.
Replacement value of a comparable new-build: $80–110 million. That is the arithmetic of the entire thesis in one vessel.
A new-build is the right answer for some owners — we run those projects too, as owner's representative, and the counter-case is laid out honestly on the Thesis page. But if the brief is to cross the Drake, anchor in South Georgia, and get home, the commercial Restomod does it for a fifth of the money and in half the time.
Yes — by a factor of three to five for equivalent capability. A Restomod delivers expedition capability at 20–40% of new-build replacement cost, because the hull, machinery, and class certificate already exist.
Eighteen to twenty-four months from signed acquisition to sea trials on a well-run project. A comparable new-build runs thirty-six to forty-eight months — and yard slots for serious expedition tonnage are scarce.
North Sea offshore supply vessels (OSVs), research vessels, and ice-class government tonnage — Ulstein designs above all. They carry heavy plate, documented stability, real range, and class histories a surveyor can verify. We do not pursue vessels past their serviceable life, whatever the asking price.
Typically $1.5–8 million depending on size, age, and class status. The purchase is the smallest part of the budget and the most important decision in the project.
Yes. Flag and class strategy is set at the start of the project — private, commercial (charter-capable), or dual compliance. It affects the build standard and the budget, which is why it is decided before the yard tender, not after.
Every engagement begins with a written engagement letter and a fixed retainer that covers qualification, technical review, and travel — credited against any commission on a transaction. The first conversation costs nothing and will save you from the three most expensive mistakes in this market.
Paul M. Madden · Xplorer Yachts · Newport, Rhode Island · +1 561 568 3430