The UK is officially in recession. So what does this mean for the British shipbuilding industry? Antony Sheriff, ceo of Princess Yachts, one of the UK’s leading luxury boat manufacturers, says that despite the news, the long term is brilliant.
After destroying equipment for several weeks when England entered a national blockade, the Plymouth-based shipyard recovered and even achieved a record month of sales in June. But with a conquered mountain, that doesn’t mean the team can rest on their laurels.” It may happen extraordinarily wrong, ” said the sheriff. But we’re back in business with a vengeance.”
“We’ve invested a lot in recent years to absolutely renew our product line,” he says, citing the innovative X Class series as a major version that is transforming the company’s and industry image.
When Princess Yachts presented the X95 at the Southampton Yacht Show in 2018, it was promptly seen by its unique architectural design that maximizes the area in a way we’ve never seen before on a fly yacht. In July, Princess introduced the X95’s “little sister”, the X80. The design is so smart that the 25-meter yacht has the same amount of usable area as one of Princess’s 30-meter yachts. It’s just as beautiful. The reaction is so strong that several have already been sold although the first X80 has not yet entered production.
While the British economy is at stake, I am talking to the sheriff about yacht production in a post-pandemic world and how the X-Class series under development is defining a new era for Princess Yachts.
Why is Class X so iconic?
The X-Class is something very different, what we wanted to do with the X Series is to reinvent the architecture of the yachts.For years, a fly yacht has become a fly yacht and there is a constant formula that defines the structure of the boat.We spend a lot of time asking ourselves, “Can we reconsider this?” Can we, from an existing footprint, get a much more attractive and usable area of a ship?»
I remember that, shortly after joining Princess, I was at the Singapore Yacht Show sitting at the helm of one of our great yachts and I realized that you have this big bridge in front of you, which is not used and no one goes there. I thought, “Why do you want the rudder stand here?” Why can’t you install the entire station on the flybridge and enlarge the main deck over the entire duration of the ship? So we tried, and that’s the genesis of Class X.
Suddenly you have a yacht with a main deck twice that of a classic yacht. We also extend the flybridge throughout the length of the yacht. Compared to a typical yacht with 95-foot fly bridge, we generate 30 to 40% more. Array In fact, the X95 has the same usable floor as our 30-meter (116-foot) boat. It makes it look very different.
What have been so far?
We are very happy with the reception, we are complete until the end of summer next year. We are also very happy with the way the boat arrived because for a boat of this length, the area and the quality of the area are a very different experience, being on an X-class boat, and now translated that into our 80-foot boat.
The X Series adapts perfectly to the environment in which we are located. It has plenty of space and many areas where other people can move separately on the boat. A rope moves. Customers also find an attractive palette to play with. In the Middle East, they said, “I would like to have a dining room upstairs in the Sky Lounge and have a giant open living room on the main terrace to match all my friends.” In other countries, they locate other things to do with other areas. We have many ships with very other characters thanks to this flexible diversity of pilots. He’s very attractive.
How have you been at the shipyard since you reopened after the Covid-19 pandemic?
It’s a hit. Our productivity has moved since we came back because we’ve been very manic about how we build things and cleanliness and keep other people focused on their roles. We were lucky that the market would follow too. It’s partly because of the good luck that there’s demand, but we also have a very strong product line and many new boats that literally make other people happy. We’re back in business with a vengeance.
What’s popular? Was there any surprises?
If you’d told me earlier this year: “There’s going to be a global pandemic and other people are going to be locked in their homes for three months and your business is going to close. How many boats are you going to travel to? My answer would have been “somewhere between 0 and 0.” So the amazing thing is that we sell anything. What’s surprising is that we set sales records.
And the answer to what we sell is everything, everywhere.Inventory is almost at record levels at dealerships; there are almost no boats in inventory.If a boat is physically in inventory, other people need it now and need to spend the summer.on the boat It happens everywhere. Europe The UK is strong.Hong Kong is strong, America is strong. We sold ships in Japan, sold ships in Croatia, sold ships in Brazil, sold ships almost all over the world.
What are your forecasts for British shipbuilding in the future?
Right now, he’s hunting, but I think what they’ve been telling us for the last 3 months is that we can’t expect the future. This can happen horribly in the wrong direction, but I think the basics are there right now. The market does not give way and, after all this, other people remain solvent and rich. I think other people have learned that boating is a smart way to spend quality time with their families, so instead of booking a hotel, they say, ‘Let’s spend a boat holiday.’
I’ve been covering the global luxury industry for over a decade. Former editor-in-chief of Tempus magazine on high-level lifestyles, I have held high-level editorial positions
I’ve been covering the global luxury industry for more than a decade. Formerly editor-in-chief at high-end lifestyle magazine Tempus, I’ve held senior editorial positions at publications across the EMEA region such as Concierge, the UAE’s premiere resource for HNWs. A BSME Award-shortlisted editor and a keen storyteller, my focus areas include innovation in yachting and travel, sustainability within the luxury sphere, and topical issues impacting UNHW communities around the world. Career highlights so far include interviewing HSH Prince Albert of Monaco, launching the UK’s first independent daily luxury news site, and wingwalking on top of a plane in Dubai.