Princess Launches X95 Superfly
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Earlier this week, Princess Yachts officially launched its new skylounge motoryacht, the X95, during a Facebook Live presentation. Antony Sheriff, Executive Chairman and CEO, at Princess said his goal with the new yacht was to change the way the marine industry looks at the concept of a flying bridge yacht.
Thinking Outside the Box
The X95 clearly takes Princess in a new direction. “Maintaining the heritage of the brand is absolutely vital but that doesn’t mean you can’t be brave,” said Sheriff. “When we start a project, I ask the team, ‘What’s new and what’s going to be the thing about this that people are going to say, gosh nobody ever thought about that.’”
Sheriff comes from the high-performance car world, having spent time at McLaren. He recalled being at the helm of another Princess yacht during a boat show and asking how the company could open up the space in front of him. The team looked at luxury sport utility vehicles as a source of inspiration for the X95’s versatility.
“Could we find a way to use the foredeck space more effectively?” asked Sheriff. “Could we get rid of the helm and make a massive main deck and put the helm up top.”
Sheriff likes to use the acronym, MAYA, which stands for “Most Advanced Yet Acceptable” and the X95 clearly pushes the bounds of what people used to think was the norm for a flying bridge yacht.
The most noticeable departure from the norm is moving the helm up to the skylounge. This opened up the main deck and Johnny Warden, Princess’ principle designer, said the X95 has 30% more interior volume than any other 95’ motoryacht the company has produced in the past. “We didn’t want to fill the space,” he said. “We wanted an open layout.”
The aft deck has a spacious lounge with a table. The transition into the salon is a seamless one and inside, there’s a variety of seating options around circular designed cocktail-style table aft. The galley and an informal dining area are forward. Princess says it eliminated the formal dining area in favor of a more relaxing atmosphere.
The design for the X95 came from three contributing teams, one from Princess’ in-house group, another from Olesinski group and the other from the Pininfarina Group. Olesinski was responsible for the naval architecture and has worked with Princess for more than 30 years. Pininfarina was brought in to bring input from other industries.
Belowdecks, the standard layout has a full-beam master aft with a VIP in the bow and two guest cabins in between. All have en suite heads and captain and crew quarters are aft. Optional layouts are available.
The Real Thing
Before the first X95 hit the water, the British company had already taken nine orders. One contributing factor to the early success was that the company actually built a full-sized mockup of the motoryacht’s salon at its South Yard in Plymouth, U.K. Prospective owners could come and get an idea of how it would feel to be aboard the X95. During the Facebook Live show, the company principles answered questions while seated in the salon mockup.
In addition to the skylounge and open concept, the X95 also needed to be more efficient. The hull shape compared to recent Princess models is a departure designed to more effectively carry the added volume. With a total of 3,800 hp, the X95 runs a top speed of 23 knots with full fuel and has a range of 2,000 nautical miles at 10 knots. Similarly sized previous Princess models needed 5,200 hp to run the same speeds.
Keep an eye out for a future Captain’s Report on the X95 at BoatTEST.com.