Throttle back to a 10-knot cruise and, says Princess, and you can expect a range of approximately 2,000 nautical miles, thanks to a whopping fuel capacity of 3,540 gallons. With MAN V12-1900 diesel inboards in the basement, the company reports a top speed in the 24- to 26-knot range. The performance numbers that Princess was touting during the press event were impressive. The fixed platform contains a transformer-type second platform that arises mechanically from “a cartridge” in the first (complete with stairway) and deploys all the way aft, thereby providing the up-and-down, in-the-water movement necessary to easily deploy and retrieve watertoys and dinghies when the boat’s in the beach club mode. Thanks to the inventive engineers at Opacmare, however, swim platform hydraulics-and the fun they engender-were not forgotten. The running surface sweeps all the way aft so that it undergirds the huge fixed swim platform at the stern. More to the point, the 95’s waterline beam was made proportionally wider than the waterline beams of most other vessels in her size range, and she was given substantially less overhanging, top-heavy structure. So, to ensure that the head-turning vessel demonstrates the seakeeping prowess Princess expects of its yachts, as well as the stability characteristics that guarantee said seakeeping ability, the team at Olesinski and the in-house Princess design team had to come up with some fairly novel ideas concerning underwater hull form. Belowdecks, options abound as well, although the standard issue seems to include a full-beam master amidships, a VIP forward, two fully configurable guest staterooms in between and either a crew’s quarters astern or a beach club.Īccording to chief designer Lawrence, the Superfly is, bottom line, a lofty, relatively heavy tri-deck motoryacht with the interior volume of a 115-footer, all superimposed upon a 95-foot LOA. And, at 72 feet from one end to the other, the “super flybridge” above the main deck is also a full-length affair, or close to it, with a rear bridge area (with a dining table and other furniture), a forward bridge area (with sunbathing area and spa) and a climate-controlled skylounge (with pilothouse) in between. In addition to the full-height wraparound windows, the trapezoidal hole in the bow and the flying buttresses that augment her profile, the 95 also sports one of the longest, most open salons in her class-indeed, sightlines stretch almost a full 60 feet from the cockpit to the giant forward window if an owner chooses the open plan with chef’s kitchen, one of three optional layouts for the main deck. The statement’s not as hyperbolic as it sounds. You might even say we, as well as our partners at Olesinski Yacht Design and our Italian friends at Pininfarina, are actually re-writing the rules.” “We are continuing to push the boundaries of yacht design with this boat. “Obviously,” said Andy Lawrence, chief designer for Princess, during a recent virtual press conference showcasing the launch of the first 95, a vessel that was already in the hands of her new owner and cruising the salty shores of Merry Ol’ England. Is that main deck actually encased in what appears to be full-height phalanxes of plate glass panels? Is there an opening, a sort of see-through trapezoidal aperture, up there in the bow area where the wind can simply blow through? And what about those sinuous, S-curved things-Princess calls them “flying buttresses”-that swoop down from the stylized canopy over the pilothouse into the rear of that miles-long flybridge, the signature feature behind the 95’s ‘Superfly’ designation? Is all this for real, man? A vessel like the X95 from Princess Yachts, for example, certainly captures the eye, and even if the eye is quite experienced, it is almost immediately and irrevocably forced to do a double take. When you combine an extraordinary variety of shapes, angles and curvatures with an extraordinary variety of fiberglass-comprised immensities, what results is often slightly, albeit excitingly, mystifying. There’s an aura of fantasy, even unreality, around big-or more to the point, strikingly big-highly-designed yachts.
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