"Chancers... Dead Right!"

Following another season with our Princess 55 and lots of new problems, part of outstanding issues just barely fixed by Princess during warranty period (and the rest having been postponed presenting one excuse or another - seemingly in order to let the warranty lapse), I have advised the owner to contact Princess again after the Covid-19 crisis to ask about the status of remaining jobs.

Below is a word-by-word direct quote from their communication with Colin Capewell, Managing Director of Princess Yachts (sensitive information masked).

Notice the high level of "professionalism" in the internal communication between Colin Capewell and Roger Lipman (Sales Director). It was also interesting to see that they totally did not mind openly forwarding their schmooze to their client...

-------

From: Colin Capewell <colin.capewell@princess.co.uk>
Date: 8. July 2020 at 10:17:30 CEST
To: xxxxx <xxxxx@gmail.com>
Cc: Roger Lipman <roger.lipman@princess.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Emergency contact / xxxxx

 Dear xxxxx
All is well here thank you, I hope all is well with you.
We have no outstanding jobs on file for this yacht.
As you know the yacht is now out of warranty coverage.

Kind Regards

Colin

Colin Capewell
Managing Director

Tel: +44 (0)1926 359977 Mob: +44 (0)7714 770343 Fax: +44 (0)1926 4615916 Athena Court • Athena Drive • Tachbrook Park • Warwick • CV34 6RT • England


On 8 Jul 2020, at 08:55, Colin Capewell <colin.capewell@princess.co.uk> wrote:

Dead right

Kind Regards

Colin

Colin Capewell
Managing Director
Tel: +44 (0)1926 359977 Mob: +44 (0)7714 770343 Fax: +44 (0)1926 461591
6 Athena Court • Athena Drive • Tachbrook Park • Warwick • CV34 6RT • England

On 8 Jul 2020, at 08:35, Roger Lipman <roger.lipman@princess.co.uk> wrote:

Chancers….

Roger Lipman

Sales Director
PRINCESS MOTOR YACHT SALES

Tel: +44 (0)1489 557755 Mob: +44 (0)7850 345029 Fax: +44 (0)1489 557766
Swanwick Marina • Lower Swanwick • Southampton • SO31 1ZL • England


From: Colin Capewell
Sent: 08 July 2020 08:22
To: Roger Lipman
Subject: Fwd: Emergency contact / xxxxx

Here is a blast from the past ... I’ll deal with this later
Kind Regards

Colin

Colin Capewell
Managing Director

Tel: +44 (0)1926 359977 Mob: +44 (0)7714 770343 Fax: +44 (0)1926 461591
6 Athena Court • Athena Drive • Tachbrook Park • Warwick • CV34 6RT • England

Begin forwarded message:
From: xxxxx <xxxxx@gmail.com>
Date: 8 July 2020 at 08:09:06 BST
To: Colin Capewell <colin.capewell@princess.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Emergency contact / xxxxx

Dear Colin,

Hope you are keeping well.

Could you please let us know where we stand with respect to remaining repair works onboard our yacht?

Looking forward to hearing from you
Kind regards,
xxxxx

-----

Take away from this story?

We leave it up to our readers...

New Season - New Series of Problems - Part 3

Other issues encountered with our Princess 55 during her second season

Many new issues surfaced during our second season. Below you may find a description of each with some pictures (you may click on the pictures to enlarge)

Port side transom access step, cracked edge. 
This plank was replaced by Princess due to crack on the other side of the very same plank (see Teak Problems). Right after it has been replaced, this time the teak plank cracked from the other side.
Status: Pending since 13 May 2019

See picture above. This very same plank had already been replaced once but cracked again.

Corroded screws contaminating transom fittings. 
We had already asked Princess to replace all stainless steel screws on the hull with proper grade ones. Screws shown on the picture above were the ones they replaced. Unfortunately, due to impurities of the hardware used (higher grade screws should have been used, which are a couple cents more expensive), the corrosion problem surfaced again.
Status: Pending since 19 May 2019

Same corrosion problem on Starboard side transom...

Swelling Leather Surfaces.
During our second season, we have noticed increased bubbling in some leather covered areas, especially in locations inevitably exposed to sun rays (like under windshield).
Status: Pending since 21 June 2019

Fading Gel Coat in cockpit
This area (Stbd side corner in cockpit) seemingly had been damaged somehow before delivery and repaired. During our pre-delivery inspections, we had not noticed anything in this area but during the second season, the color contrast became very obvious between original gelcoat finish and repaired section. Princess have been informed and asked to rectify the issue.
Status: Pending since 16 May 2019

Stains in Wall Coverings
We have noticed stains in wall coverings at the beginning of the second season. We are not sure why and how these happened but they were all over the VIP cabin. We are suspecting that a water ingress might have caused the issue.
Status: Pending since 22 June 2019

Corroding Boat Sign
We have been charged 6340 EUR for a backlit boat name fitted by Princess, supposedly to be made from Stainless Steel 316. At the end of the first season, we have started to notice rust marks on the sign. These rust marks penetrated the backlit panel as well.
Status: Pending since 27 September 2018

Hatch Gasket Peeling Off
The crew cabin hatch gasket had been peeling off since the very first day. Princess claimed they fixed the problem but it kept on surfacing. We've tried some fixes as well but to no avail. The dislocated gasket was also causing water ingress to crew area during washdown or heavy rain. We think that there is an alignment issue with the hatch/frame that needs to be addressed.
Status: Pending since 16 May 2019

New Season - New Series of Problems - Part 2

Dust/Ash Particles from Main Engines Exhaust Pipes

As the boat started cruising her second season, we noticed some ash-like particles coming out of both engine exhaust pipe junctions. After consulting with a few Volvo Penta Service Centers, we have been advised that due to the fact that exhaust pipe insulation works were not performed properly, exhaust heat combined with vibration were decomposing the insulation material and causing it to spread out to the engine room.

Aside from the mess this has been causing in our Engine Room, we did not like the fact that spreading dust would now be absorbed by Main Engines + Genset air filters as well as cooling fans of all electronic equipment mounted in the Engine Room (ie Inverters, Chargers, Electrical panel cooling etc.)
Status: Pending since 12 May 2019

Dust particles coming out of the Exhaust Pipe insulation of Main Engines.

Main Electrical Panel Malfunction

The main electrical panel which was faulty since the very first day was occasionally either freezing or some of the segments in the Voltmeter were not displaying correctly.
A restart of the panel usually solved the problem, until it happened again.
Princess has been made aware of the issue but they did not rectify it claiming that they did not have a remedy for it yet.

Faulty Voltmeter display on Main Electrical Panel

During the second season, we have noticed that on top of the missing display segments, the Voltmeter was displaying faulty voltage indications as well.
To make sure that this problem was not related to the shore voltage, we measured the voltage from our shore cable via a Multimeter.
Status: Pending since 6 June 2019

Voltmeter on the Main Electrical Panel displaying 203V, whereas the Voltage supplied from shore pedestal is 232V.

We measured the shore power voltage with a Multimeter -without removing our shore power cable from the pedestal- and it read 232V

Saloon TV Lift Getting Stuck

The optional 32 inch TV in the Saloon is fitted with an Up/Down Lift operated via a switch next to it.
Whilst lowering or raising the TV, we noticed that it was getting stuck in any random position and freezing in that position. The only way to have it work again was to cut its power off from the circuit breaker, wait couple seconds and reinstate it. This resetting often times would not fix the issue and the Lift would get stuck again. Because the Lift would not go all the way down to lock in place, the TV would not switch off as well. Since the TV's remote control IR receiver is no longer exposed when the lift is stuck, it would also not be possible to switch off the TV manually via remote controller.
Status: Pending since 24 May 2019

TV Lift in Saloon getting stuck in any random position, either during lowering or raising. 

Wobbling Port Side Electric Window

Initially, both electric windows (Port + Stbd side) were working fine, but during the first season, we have started noticing some strange sounds coming from the port side window. This later turned into wobbling whilst raising or lowering the window. It kept on getting worse throughout the second season, we therefore turned off its circuit breaker and stopped using it fearing that it would fail whilst the window is open.
Status: Pending since 12 June 2019

Port side electric window increasingly wobbling when raising or lowering.

Parquet Flooring Edges Separating from Base Moldings

Another issue that we noticed during our second season was parquet floor related problems. We have observed that most of the wooden floor edges were changing shape and gaps were forming on the edges where the flooring joined the base moldings. We believe that these edges should have been properly finished and filled with marine grade flexible filler material. 

Status: Pending since 17 May 2019

Floor edges starting to separate from base moldings and forming a gap in between.