Hello guys,

I'm totally new here, and I have a few questions I hope some of the more advanced boat users can possibly help answer.

I live on the Costa Blanca in Spain, a relatively calm sea, so great for power boating. A trip to Ibiza from here is only 100km a way for example. My girlfriend an I are looking to buy our first motor boat soon, and we recently both got our power boating licence which allows us the drive a boat up to 12m length.

We got our eye on a 2007 Doral Monticello. The listing can be found here: http://www.spainusedcars.com/UsedCarsSpain/2012/03/doral-monticello-9-metre-luxury-cruiser59950.html#more

It 9m long including the swimming deck at the end. After doing some reading online, people do recommend not going over 8m boats for your very first boat. So here comes my first question, do you think that this boat will be too large as a first boat?

As for the Doral boats, so far I have not read many bad reviews about them, they actually seem to get praised quite a lot. Has anybody ever had issues with them here?

This Doral Monticello comes with a large number of different engines when you buy it new. The one from this listing comes with a Volvo D4 260 diesel engine. It seems they have great fuel economy, which is something we are definatly looking for. But I have not found much information about it's reliablity. Does anybody here have experience with this Volvo D4 260 diesel engine?

We plan to use this boat in salt water environments only. And probably from around May till September, so quite a few months of the year. Would it be terrible to keep it in the water all year round? 

Thank you very much for reading my post.