With no shortage of talented 55ft flybridges to choose from, how does this new Princess 55 separate itself from the pack?
The new Princess 55 may not be as revolutionary as the active foiling R35 but it is just as important to Princess’s success and represents exactly the type of craft on which Princess has cultivated its enviable reputation.
This is the real bread and butter for the yard, even if at £1.1 million for this three-cabin flybridge cruiser, it’s a fair bit richer than your standard loaf of Mother’s Pride.
The 55 replaces the 52 and the 56, both of which are excellent boats. In fact, the 52 was so good that it ended up posing a bit of a threat to its own big sister.
In this size range, Princess is uncannily adept at getting the balance right between internal volume, style, seakeeping and handling.
The competition is hotting up though, and this sector is packed with talented rivals from the award-winning Sunseeker Manhattan 52 to the achingly stylish Prestige 520 and hugely spacious Absolute 58 Fly.
Name any mainstream motor boat manufacturer and you can bet that there is a capable 50-55ft flybridge in the range.
In a bid to separate the 55 from the pack, Princess claims to have elevated the feeling of quality on board to unprecedented levels, even for a yard that is generally top of the class when it comes to perceived quality.
It seems to have done the trick; the saloon radiates class, whether it’s the solidity of the wooden flooring, the luxurious squish of the carpet, the warm tactility of the leather-wrapped grabhandles or the subtle glow of the LED backlighting peeping out from the elegant contours of the cabinetry.
Components that you regularly come into contact with like door handles and locker catches feel suitably substantial and the new lower helm design is a lesson in clear, polished design and excellent ergonomics.
Read the full report in the August 2018 issue of MBY.
