"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...

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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

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Take away from this story?

We leave it up to our readers...

16000 Views! | General Update

We have noticed a considerable increase in page views over the past few weeks. Our investigation revealed that our blog has now become subject to tens of discussion board and blog posts including ybw.com, canalworld.net, yachtsandyachting.com, planetnautique.com, boatdesign.net, cruiserownersforum.com, yachtforums.com, fairlineownersclub.com, bassboatmagazine.com, multihulls4us.com, sail-world.com, messing-about.com, powerboat-world.com and many other boating related social platforms.

As a result, our blog has reached 16000 page views as of this morning.
Thanks a lot for your interest and support!

Anonymous Emails

We recently received two consecutive anonymous emails from a group of persons who claim to be "frustrated" ex-Princess engineers. Said messages included noteworthy documents, pictures and excerpts of communication threads.
Our legal advisors are currently examining the contents of these documents.
We'll keep you posted...

Not a single Word from Princess

Our sources indicate that, despite the fact that Princess Motor Yachts is fully aware of outstanding issues onboard their Princess 55, they have not taken any sort of action in order to address them.

A "Cracking" 1 Year Old Princess Superyacht?

During our research on the internet, we came across an interesting post describing a newly built 30m Princess Superyacht.

On her first season, apparently the captain noticed that the boat was cracking from various locations on the hull and superstructure and immediately ordered a survey. According to this survey report, the boat was a 1 year old 30m Princess with more than 60 cracks ranging from a couple of centimeters to more than a meter on some locations.
The owner hired a surveyor to investigate the cause of the cracks.

Below, quoting some parts and attaching some pictures from the very survey report that we bumped into during our research:

"The yacht was placed in a cradle on land in an indoor winter storage and was accessible and free to survey from all sides. The inspection was done visually and focused on anomalous cracks in the surface. Found cracks were marked and numbered and documented in the following report. Normal scratches, obviously caused by normal usage of the yacht were not considered nor documented."

"The concentration of hull cracks around 7m from the transom and 14m from the bow are close to the sling lifting positions. The sling lifting plan of the builder shipyard showed a forward double sling and an aft double sling position."

"Consequently the engine room and propulsion layout of ..... concentrate all the weight in the aft area of the hull. When placing the aft slings under the forward engine room bulkhead without any further sling support under the engine room during a lifting process, the aft part of the hull will bend down. It is to assume that the regular bending of the hull might be visible in form of cracks on a thick faired surface."

"According to the plan, the forward lifting point leaves around 14,5m of the forward hull unsupported. It is to assume that the location of the cracks in correspondence with the lifting slings and with the long unsupported forward hull stay in correlation."

"The inspection of the hull showed that the hull deck joint is covered with a stainless steel rub rail. Above the stainless steel rail various smaller horizontal cracks could be identified. These cracks were randomly spread over the whole yacht. On the inner side of the bulwark most of the cracks could be detected in the round edges of the freeing ports. Additional cracks could be found on all bulwark doors. Cracks on various places on the bulwark doors showed mostly that the door inlays to support the screws of the door hinges were damaged. Cracks were found around hinges and on some doors a visible damage on the surfaces could be made out that indicates that the inlays in the door is split or broken and pushed the laminate to the side. This might also occur when a wooden inlay is chosen, water comes through cracks and the wood expands. This might either be cause of a not proper installation or already a secondary damage."

"The general GRP material flexibility is interrupted in areas where parts are glued together. The horizontal cracks above the stainless steel rub rail show stress in the area of the hull-deck-connection. The gelcoat cracked around the stiff areas where flexibility exists. These cracks could have occurred when the boat bended or even already during the installation process of the deck on the hull when the deck was screwed down to the hull flange."

"Cracks on freeing ports in general can occur when stress and pressure is on the bulwark and both outer side and inner surface of the bulwark have movement in different direction. This could happen during the production process if the deck is not perfectly fitted on placed bulkheads or if the deck is forced down to the hull flange connection."

"Within the inspection of the superstructure various randomly located cracks were found. Especially on the starboard side two bigger cracks were detected with a parallel vertical direction in a distance of 40cm to each other which might be also caused by movement or bending of the superstructure."

"In the summary it can be said that hull, as well as deck and superstructure, are affected by cracks. The location and concentration of hull cracks close to prescribed sling positions in correspondence with the unsupported weight of the forward and aft section by lifting process suggest the assumption that the cracks were most probably caused through lifting processes since they exert most pressure and stress on the boat structure. The same applies to the cracks in the bulwark and the superstructure that showed in general various minor cracks. Regarding the cracks in the doors it can be assumed that the internal structure of the doors is not properly to support the hinges and the weight of the doors." 

"In order to avoid future cracks in the hull the thickness of the existing filler needs to be reduced which should be done by sandblasting the yacht to remove the existing filler. The hull laminate should be laid bare and in deep areas laminate should be added to make the hull surface smooth as possible. The hull needs to be re-faired with a strong filler with an internal stiffness and that is flexible enough to not break and strong enough to resist a bending of the yacht. The fairing process as such needs to be done the way that the existing filler is primarily sanded down to the highest lamination points instead of just adding new filler on top. Afterwards filler can be applied step by step to reach a smooth surface. Just adding filler is a common and easy method but not recommended. Cracks around the rub rail and on the bulwark surface should be treated the same way. Freeing ports need to be sanded completely down to the laminate and the cracks should be opened and then re-laminated. Additional layers of laminate in the freeing ports should avoid future cracks. The bulwark doors should be rebuilt completely. The focus should be to build the doors as light as possible. The inlays for the hinge fixation should be made of aluminum or stainless steel with an internal grid in order to support the weight of the doors on different points. The internal structure of the doors should carry the open/close mechanism. The outer GRP shell should function as shell only. The cracks on the superstructure need to be largely opened and afterwards supported by additional lamination. Furthermore the sling lifting plan should be revised and a focus should be on the internal weight distribution. The lifting plan needs to be redesigned according to the weight positions in connection with the inner structural elements such as transversal frames, longitudinal stringers and bulkheads. The focus of the works to be carried out should ensure that the bending of the boat is reduced during a lifting process by slings."

Scandal of luxury yachts built in the UK with illegitimate Burmese teak

8th January, 2018

LONDON: As the London Boat Show opens this week (10-14 January) the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) warned that two of the biggest exhibitors have been building yachts for the luxury market with illegitimate teak from Myanmar.

EIA research reveals that Burmese teak entering the supply chains of the UK’s two largest yacht builders, Sunseeker International and Princess Yachts International, was traded in breach of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR).

The EUTR has been in force since 2013 to combat illegal logging and the associated trade in stolen timber.

Sunseeker and Princess Yachts are both exhibiting at the London Boat Show and were reported in 2017 as having forward order books jointly worth more than £1billion; an overwhelming majority of these vessels will have Burmese teak decks.

NHG Timber and Belgian firm Vandercasteele Hout Import are suppliers of Burmese teak to the Sunseeker and Princess Yachts supply chains. The companies Moody Decking and D.A. Watts & Sons use this teak to produce decks for Sunseeker and Princess Yachts.

UK authorities have confirmed that NHG Timber has been found in breach of the EUTR for the trading of Burmese teak, a decision meaning that all firms known to be placing Burmese teak on the UK market have now been found in breach.

This action was taken by the UK EUTR competent authority – Regulatory Delivery at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – following the submission of cases by EIA and prohibits any of the firms from placing further Burmese teak on the market until they can show compliance with the law. Vandercasteele has also been found to be trading in breach of the EUTR and subjected to similar enforcement in Belgium following the submission of a case by EIA.

In a statement, EIA said: “Both Sunseeker and Princess Yachts contract Moody Decking and D.A. Watts & Sons to provide teak decking for their yachts. It appears that teak on these yachts traded since the EUTR came into force has been traded illegitimately. While the EUTR doesn’t regulate Sunseeker and Princess Yachts, their demand for Burmese teak is helping to drive trade in the UK and their customers are unwittingly receiving non-compliant wood products.

“Myanmar has acknowledged that combatting illegal logging and the associated criminal trade is a priority in addressing corruption and lack of transparency, but the ongoing demand for Burmese teak by European shipyards such as Sunseeker and Princess Yachts undermines this.

“If the companies are unable to source legally traded Burmese teak, then they must make use of readily available legal alternatives.”

The EUTR only regulates the act of first placement of timber. Regulated timber companies providing teak to the Princess and Sunseeker yacht supply chains include:
-NHG Timber (UK)
-Vandercasteele Hout Import (Belgium)

Each of these companies has been found in breach of the EUTR.

Decking companies supplying to the Princess and Sunseeker yacht supply chains are:
-Moody Decking (UK)
-D.A. Watts & Sons (UK)

Source: Environmental Investigation Agency

3000 Page Views in 3 Weeks... Thank You!

3 weeks since we started this blog and we already reached 3000 page views from an audience in 17 countries! Hit rates are almost exponentially sloping up and we expect to reach 5000 views within less than two weeks.

Thanks a lot for your interest and support…

Princess owners are reaching out to us

We have been contacted by 2 Princess owners who relatively recently purchased their boats and stated that they had similar quality issues that they were having to deal with. We had a long chat with both of them. They proposed to share their own list of problems and pictures/videos for us to publish on our blog.

We'll keep you posted...