Huge thumbs up to Princess!

markc

markc

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During the summer on the boat, my 9 year old boat obsessed son Jacob decided that he wanted to do a project on Princess boats. This involved creating charts of all their boats since the Project 31 to the current date, a spreadsheet with all the data points, plus loads of drawings and ideas for inside and outside of the boats. At the end of the summer he asked if I could send it to Princess, so I got hold of the email address for Antony Sheriff (CEO) and Jacob wrote him an email and sent him everything. First off, he received a lovely personal reply from Antony and then from Kiran Haslam (CMO) who sent him a package of goodies, a special certificate and an invitation to spend the day with Princess at SIBS. For the past 2 weeks Jacob has been beside himself with excitement and yesterday we went to SIBS. Kiran personally showed him round everything from the Y85 through to the R35, sat with Jacob while he showed him all his boat drawings and then set up a Facetime call with Antony who was out of the country. The amount of time and patience Kiran had was incredible, answering Jacob's fast flowing questions and allowing him to crawl all over the boats, showing him how things work, how they were designed or how they were made in the factory. In Jacob's own words "it was the best day of my life!"

Princess could have just passed Jacob's initial letter to a PR person and sent him a couple of tickets, but the personal and genuine interest he received from very senior people was amazing. Huge thumbs up!
 
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Hats off to Jacob for the enthusiasm and great to see Princess having that personal touch, Perhaps Jacob could replace Henry as their biggest fan ;)
 
Yep, definitely a huge thumbs up to both Jacob and Princess top management.
If I may ask, since you are a Ferretti owner, is there any reason why your son didn't to what he did with Ferretti instead?
 
MapisM said:
Yep, definitely a huge thumbs up to both Jacob and Princess top management.
If I may ask, since you are a Ferretti owner, is there any reason why your son didn't to what he did with Ferretti instead?
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Because Jacob clearly has taste! :D (you walked into that one)

Life long memory made there....what a proud dad you must be :encouragement:
 
FARSCO said:
Because Jacob clearly has taste! :D (you walked into that one)
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Wow, that's a not so subtle way of telling that Jacob's dad doesn't... :rolleyes:
Me, having never owned a Ferretti (though I do like some of their boats, included the one of markc), I had zero fear of walking into anything.
'Twas just idle curiosity, nothing else.
 
MapisM said:
Wow, that's a not so subtle way of telling that Jacob's dad doesn't... :rolleyes:
Me, having never owned a Ferretti (though I do like some of their boats, included the one of markc), I had zero fear of walking into anything.
'Twas just idle curiosity, nothing else.
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It was a joke.....bit lacking of late on the forum
 
OK, I think we're all agreed that I have massively good taste!

Anyway, to answer MapisM's question. Jacob is obsessed with all types of boats and can pretty much name any boat that you show him, from an NC9 to a Leopard 23m. Last year he took quite a fancy to a Princess 35M in the Old Port in Saint Raphael and that started him checking out Princess. I mentioned to him that my dad had a Project 31 (the first Princess) when I was a baby and that started him looking at all their old boats. I guess that just triggered his desire to make a database of them, which led to doing some designs to fill in their range such as an R38 and a Y66. He has a photographic memory and loves detail & numbers (I know, he sounds autistic, but he isn't), and he gets very passionate about things and I do encourage him, especially as he isn't allowed to waste his time playing video games and such like.
 
Aha, I see. Definitely makes sense.
And between us, I'm skeptic that if he would have wrote to the lawyer in charge of Ferretti we would be debating an equally impressive result... :ambivalence:
 
That’s a great story Mark and very uplifting. Well done to Jacob and Princess. Although separated by a space-time discontinuum, Jacob sounds like a long lost cousin :D. I thought princess y85 was best boat at the show.
 
A great story and well done to everyone involved.

I've spoken to Kiran a number of times, most recently at Cannes and he is a good guy with an obsession for cars that rivals Jacob's interest in boats so he will have been able to identify with him.


The boy's got good taste, you must be proud - future of British boat building.....
 
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