Quite possibly, but that has nothing to do with the badge on the side. Changing that won't help and isn't needed, Princess is unquestionably regarded as a luxury yacht brand.
Yes that was my point really. A Princess day boat to compete with Pardo or Say or Tecnomar or whatever needs not to be more of the same.
Yes, I could see that - the opposite of a luxury sub brand, an unluxury brand!
I think Princess has plenty of scale and capacity in its operations, but the question is whether they can achieve any real cost savings from this model range expansion - or will it turn out to be a case of diseconomies of scale
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Those are examples of what I was thinking about.
The man behind Axopar, Jan-Erik Viitala, was also behind Aquador, XO and Paragon, but the company didn't 'grow out of' those companies. It's a completely seperate independent company started by JEV.I think Princess has plenty of scale and capacity in its operations, but the question is whether they can achieve any real cost savings from this model range expansion - or will it turn out to be a case of diseconomies of scale
Axopar is only about 10 years old (though it grew out of existing brands Aquador, XO Boats, and Paragon), so Princess probably has a much larger customer base and obviously a wealth of boatbuilding experience.
I think that they are the same boat….but for different markets
I agree with your post in principle, and that's exactly the point I was making earlier, that Princess are very unlikely to be trying to take on Axopar. But are Pardo really 'targetted mainly to rental companies'?
Prado, Fjord et al also have that ‘this is only my tender by the way’ look about them
Yes indeed, agree with that. Hence surprised to hear them described as targeted mainly to rental companies.
To clarify, when I said Axopar “grew out of” Aquador, XO Boats, and Paragon, I didn’t mean a joint venture or investment. I meant that Axopar was founded based on experience gained from those brands (I don't think Jan-Erik worked with Aquador, but I believe one or more of the co-founders did). Why else would they name Axopar that way? Jouni Huusko, their Head of Design, worked at XO Boats for years before joining Axopar, and a look at both brands shows a clear design lineage.
Nothing to do with looks. The point of a 'walk-around' or centre console style like the Pardo is that there isn't a conventional high foredeck as such, the cockpit effectively extends all the way to the front. So there is no conventional side decks or foredeck to step up onto, you're inside the boat as you go forward just like you are in the cockpit of a conventional Princess or similar, and thus absolutely no need for high rails. They do generally have low level grab rails so you have something to hang on to, but you're still very much inside the boat so no need for high pulpit rails. For example:
You said that Princess has plenty of scale and capacity in its operations to take on the likes of Axopar. I doubt very much that they have, or that they would want to.
When there is a ready made market from boat hire companies (like big sailing cats in the Caribbean) it makes it a lot easier for manufacturers to enter....all Princess has to do is get a handful of renting companies onboard....especially easy if they get them during the design phase so that they fit exactly the market requirements
What was the reason that they pulled the R35? It was introduced at a time when demand was on the rise…. I can imagine that Princess may have decided to use the production capacity for the core models which were in high demand around 2020-2022.