Princess P52 or Fairline Sq 48

[admillington]

IIRC, in the recent MBM test the Targa 48 couldn't hit 30kts so its unlikely that the heavier and bigger Sq48 will reach 30kts either. Magazine tests always get the best performance figures so when a Sq48 is loaded with cruising gear and has a season's worth of Med fouling, my guess is that it will struggle to hit 25kts at best and small engines that are having to work hard to maintain boat speed invariably drink a lot of fuel. As for weight, the Sq48 may have a resin infused hull but boats are much taller to accommodate a full standing height master cabin these days and contain more equipment; the Sq48 weighs 14t according to the Fairline spec and I'd be surprised if your T46 weighed quite as much although I'm happy to be flamed on that

Mike

Have checked the MBM test and it states 32 knots with 90% fuel/100% water, four crew and if the tender was on board that will be another 350+ Kgs.

The T48 was coming out of Lymington when we were off to the Channel Islands and it was no slow coach - I was keeping place to get a look and it was doing well over 30 knots by my GPS.

 

[Smooth Sailing]

Every other boat I've owned has had Volvo engines so it's not as though they don't know what they are doing. As you say it all comes down to the pennies or SGD !

I will keep in touch if we end up in Singapore. We may be there in April en-route to Thailand for Songkran. I do have a plan to put a boat in the water at Singapore then wander up the side of Malaysia to Thailand. A few years off though.

Henry

Yes pls do let me know. If you are in Singapore next April, you may want to coincide your trip with the Singapore Yacht Show which is held at One Degree Fifteen Marina. Princess usually has a good showing since Vrit took over the dealership here.

Thks again

 

[Smooth Sailing]

Hiya, im actually the owner to be' of the first sq48 so forgive me if i sound a little biased, but i feel you are comparing quit differant boats, if it was my dilemma, id be looking at cost being a huge factor and residual values in the coming years. running costs and moorings/servicing all play a big factor with the larger heavier princess, from a build quality point of view much of a muchness and i myself did consider the princess last year at the boatshow albeit expensive, the fairline is now the new resin infused hull which is said to be stronger and lighter so another consideration there regarding economy and also having the more efficient an economical IPS on D6 435 engines! the 3 cabin layout which iv gone for with the 48 has a huge third cabin not seen in previous builds of a similar sized boat so maybe worth a look in the flesh before you buy! hope this helps and as always this is just my opinion!! Good Luck with whichever you purchase though! cheers

Congrats on being one of the first owners of the Sq 48. She is indeed a very beautiful yacht. I like the new layout of the 48 vs the 50 as I prefer the full beam master . I can't say I know much about the resale of either boats but I know that the squadron 42s here in Singapore have held their values quite well.
Enjoy her !

 

[Smooth Sailing]

I looked at the P52 for the first time on Friday, and for a hot climate I think it's a great layout. I really like that when you open up the patio doors it extends the cockpit area, and that snacks and drinks are so close at hand without having to walk through the saloon. If your kids are watching a film for example, you don't need to disturb them to top up your G&T.

In comparison, I dislike the galley down layout on the Sq, same as I disliked it on earlier Princesses. When you eat on the flybridge there's loads of stuff to move from the galley to the fly - plates of food, crockery and cutlery, wine, ice buckets, glasses, condiments, place mats etc., and it's a long trek on the Sq, and involves two sets of stairs. In a hot climate like Singapore you will probably use the flybridge a lot, so the Princess layout will work much better in that respect. The issue some people have with the P52 layout is that you lose the internal dinette, but you don't have one on the Sq48 either. Anyway, I think the dinette is more a cool weather requirement, so less likely to bother you, but if it does, then neither boat is suitable.

I also much prefer the saloon layout on the P52, because it's bigger and you have seating on both sides, which is more sociable when you have a few friends on board. Fairline make fine boats, so you can't go too far wrong with either one, but between the two I think the Princess layout works better.

Hi Nick - appreciate your views. I would agree that the internal layout of the P52 is more "useable" than the Sq 48. Yes in Singapore we use the flybridge alot! Princess came out with a new option of a hardtop for the P52 but at gbp30-35k it's alot of money ! Also i was concerned that the hardtop may look out of proportion in a 52 whilst it may look the part in a longer and sleeker 60.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Mike

Have checked the MBM test and it states 32 knots with 90% fuel/100% water, four crew and if the tender was on board that will be another 350+ Kgs.

The T48 was coming out of Lymington when we were off to the Channel Islands and it was no slow coach - I was keeping place to get a look and it was doing well over 30 knots by my GPS.

admillington, I stand corrected, you are right. Either I've got my knickers in a twist or I've seen the figures elsewhere so I apologise and withdraw my comments ref the T48 and Sq48 speeds. I still think that 2 x IPS600 is a bit underpowered for a 14t flybridge boat but we'll have to wait for the mag test

 

[kahns one]

IPS V'S Shafts princess/fairline

hiya, your right in a sense that they havent been around in sport cruisers! but the system and technology has been used in tugs and larger commercial vessels for many years and proved much more efficient and versatile than shaft drive systems! i myself dont have a problem with shafts and the fact that see keeping is better than leg drive boats or similar!! but now fairline have put IPS at the back of the hull on a drive shaft with the engines in much the same position and fuel tanks in front of the them, so the efficiency and see-keeping is second to none, unfortunately some other manufacturers have not taken Fairlines approach and put the engines an IPS right at the back compromising this in my opinion. Fairline test their boats with full fuel, full water an waste tank and the jet rib on the back, also the targa was loaded with bladder bags to make up for the extra weight of the flybridge on sq48, and the figures reported are based on this!!

 

[erik_plus8]

Yep, good point, and to support your view they also say it rides quite bow high. That would make for quite an unpleasant boat to drive, so I hope there's some scope to improve it. If i'm not mistaken Fairline have mounted the engines further forward and used transfer shafts to avoid that particular issue.

I don't fully understand that argument. How do builders of sterndrive sportcruisers then balance their boats - where the engines are even further back (directly at the transom) than the Princess IPS installation? And also, sterndrive boats being generally a bit smaller than these 48ft:ers the engines will represent a comparatively larger part of the total weight. These two 48ft boats are probably so far the heaviest boats being driven by a pair of D6:s so the engine weight should at least theoretically affect the boat less?

 

[henryf]

I understood that the whole reason for fitting IPS was that it frees up internal space by having the engines further aft. You would have to move the engines significantly further forward to re-trim the boat. An alternative would be to try and place weight right forward where less weight would provide more effect.

I also agree with the statement on stern drive boas having engines mounted a long way back and not suffering any ill effect. I think shafts joining onto the IPS units is a bit of a red herring. But then again I'm clearly not qualified in these matters

The alternative is to work with trim tabs.

One of the things I've found with planing boats over the years is how much a dirty hull affects things to the point where in the extreme you couldn't get up on the plane. You have to accept some hull growth, keeping a 50 footer out of the water is impractical and you can't be cleaning it every 2 minutes. A boat that just manages to get up on the plane and propel it's self along with a clean hull may be a very different story with hull growth.

Having more power at hand means you lose a few knots and see some excess fuel burn but you can still get around at a decent pace. Having just enough power may not be quite enough with growth on the hull.


Henry

 

[PowerYachtBlog]

hiya, your right in a sense that they havent been around in sport cruisers! but the system and technology has been used in tugs and larger commercial vessels for many years and proved much more efficient and versatile than shaft drive systems!

IPS has been around since 2005, that is eight years and many sport cruisers have been made with it.

If you want to compare the pods used on tugs and large commercial vessels I add that those are a different animal to the Volvo IPS system. Totally different.
I also add that despite the more success of Volvo the ZF pod drive is much better in my book and not only. Please also note that 75% of the Volvo IPS was developed by ZF people (the gearbox part). The ZF system is also better for being a less complicated drive when it comes to hull design, as they need only semi tunnels on current hull design. No Vee degrees and angle modifications of how this warps from midships onwards....
The fact that top Sportfish builders in the US also prefare ZF to Volvo says a lot on the reliability between the two drives...

As for having the engines fuel tank in the middle or not, this surely helps and by the videos I can see that the Fairline is a very straight riding boat, more so to the Princess V48 for sure, and also Sunseeker 50 San Remo to stay on British builds.
But if that alone, is to make a boat run straight with little bow high degrees....

Putting engines aft is no new idea, some builders have done this for ages, Sunseeker and Ferretti did it since the nineties...
I can speak of two boats off my mind, boat with aft engines lying, and shaft drives (now with this is harder then IPS to make a boat run straight since the pressure of the prop is pushing not pulling as in the Volvo pods). Anyways both 90s build Ferretti 57 and Sunseeker 54 Manhattan (53 Man/52 Caribean) used to run pretty straight with engines located at shaft. In this case more compliments to Shead and Sunseeker of the era as the boat also had tunnels which also adds more straight pressure add to bow lift in the lower speed range. But the Ferretti 57 is impressive on another perspective as even at 12 knots it planes, and is straight as it is in the marina.

Eric the Absolute 52 used twin IPS600 D6 435hp and was heavier by about 2 tons to both the Fairline and Princess. They managed 32 knots max, and does 30 knots loaded.

The most interesting data on IPS and pods that I have is that Azimut have spent millions of EUROS on R&D for this, and in my book have not much been convinced about it since so far they had only 3 IPS drive the 43S (by the way this also weighs 15 t loaded), triple powered 55S, and Atlantis 50x4. The last two are fully IPS project. Considering that they have released over 20 new models since 2005 I think this says a lot of things, and they also had a dozen different models modified for IPS use tested in Sweden....
I think the real problem for IPS is that if you have your platform ready for shafts it is not really so much cost effective as they say it is, and this works both ways for both the buyer and builder.

 

[Nick_H]

I don't fully understand that argument. How do builders of sterndrive sportcruisers then balance their boats - where the engines are even further back (directly at the transom) than the Princess IPS installation? And also, sterndrive boats being generally a bit smaller than these 48ft:ers the engines will represent a comparatively larger part of the total weight. These two 48ft boats are probably so far the heaviest boats being driven by a pair of D6:s so the engine weight should at least theoretically affect the boat less?

Well outdrive boats can be ar5e heavy at lower planing speeds before they get enough lift, and of course you can trim outdrives, whereas you can't trim IPS. I've certainly had outdrive boats that need to be trimmed in a bit to avoid slamming and/or porpoising, and also that need a fair bit of trim tab at lower planing speeds to keep the back end up.

Having said that, I wasn't really arguing anything. I don't know if Fairline's decision to move the engines forward, or Princesses apparent slamming problem is due to weight distribution or something completely different. If you look at the two videos on the MB&Y page though, and compare the point where they both cross the photo boats wake, there's no question the Fairline handles it better.

 

[MapisM]

I don't fully understand that argument. How do builders of sterndrive sportcruisers then balance their boats

Simple, by designing the hull knowing in advance that they will have to stick engines somewhere.
Load balancing is a fine art, and involves much more than moving the engines around.
Even different propellers can affect the longitudinal asset of a planing hull at speed, go figure.
And the most critical thing are the tanks anyway, not the engines, because that is a variable load, which gives you no other choice than putting them near the CoG, to avoid getting different boat behaviours depending on the fuel/water load.
Moving engines forward by attaching them to IPS drives with a shaft sounds pretty much as an afterthought, in my books.
If nothing else, adds weight and complexity with no reason.

 

[henryf]

One of the more pleasant aspects of our move from P42 to P50 is the reduction in slamming when going into head seas. I've always put that down to the P50 being a heavier boat, particularly the front third of the boat. A heavier lay up, extra hull height and so on. It's also heavier elsewhere and that gives the boat it's own momentum and inertia to dominate waves. If a 5 stone weakling runs up to you and body slams you you can lean into it and stay standing. If a 22 stone rugby player does the same you end up in the car park

I wonder if the move to lighter hulls means less good performance in head seas for a given length? With traditional methods around 50 feet seemed to be the tipping point for a "big boat" feel. Possibly the length increases with lighter hull construction. Alternately you need to push the bow down more artificially when underway.

I can see the advantage less weight has at planing speed, less so at displacement speed but just as with cars lightweight racing cars whilst ideal on the circuit give a very different ride to heavier luxury cars on the road. There comes a point where they haven't got sufficient weight to dominate their environment and loading them up with passengers increases their mass by too great a percentage.

Henry

 

[MapisM]

just as with cars lightweight racing cars whilst ideal on the circuit give a very different ride to heavier luxury cars on the road.

That's actually a good comparison, because when we discuss the difference between P and D hulls sometimes we forget that the range of P hulls is actually huge, from 15 knots or so up to..., well, the sky is the limit, actually.
My old 27' lake boat, which was still far from being a racing boat anyway, lost 2mph top speed just by filling the tank completely, as opposed to having just 1/4 or so.
And it only had a 220L tank, so I'm talking of a 150kg or so difference! Then again, the loss meant slowing down from 70 to 68mph...
Anyway, if we speak of "normal" f/b boats cruising in the 20/25 kts range, I would think that other factors like the hull design and the weight distribution can affect the boat behaviour much more than a weight difference alone.

 

[erik_plus8]

Simple, by designing the hull knowing in advance that they will have to stick engines somewhere.
Load balancing is a fine art, and involves much more than moving the engines around.
Even different propellers can affect the longitudinal asset of a planing hull at speed, go figure.
And the most critical thing are the tanks anyway, not the engines, because that is a variable load, which gives you no other choice than putting them near the CoG, to avoid getting different boat behaviours depending on the fuel/water load.
Moving engines forward by attaching them to IPS drives with a shaft sounds pretty much as an afterthought, in my books.
If nothing else, adds weight and complexity with no reason.

Exactly. I agree. Mine was a rhetorical question. Princess knows where the engines will end up and should be able to balance the hull for that, taking everything else into account. I find it hard to believe Fairline added jack shafts only for the sake of weight distribution.

 

[MapisM]

I find it hard to believe Fairline added jack shafts only for the sake of weight distribution.

I wouldn't disagree in principle, if it weren't that I can't tihnk of any other sensible reason for adding unnecessary stuff in the e/r...

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I wonder if the move to lighter hulls means less good performance in head seas for a given length? With traditional methods around 50 feet seemed to be the tipping point for a "big boat" feel. Possibly the length increases with lighter hull construction. Alternately you need to push the bow down more artificially when underway.

Yes this is a very fair question although I don't think that boats are actually getting lighter. Any gains in hull construction techniques are being offset by the increasing height of the boats themselves to accommodate larger cabins and by an increasing amount of equipment on board. For example, 20yrs ago a 50ft flybridge boat would probably not have to carry a 250kg jetrib, a large gennie, aircon, holding tank, washing machine and dishwasher. The stated weight for the Sq48 at 14000kg doesn't seem particularly light to me

 

[henryf]

All understood.

What I would say is the pivot point of a planing boat when underway is, I suspect quite a long way aft. The pivot point on a car when you're setting up suspension is actually under the Tarmac and I suspect boats will be the same. Most of the weight is gathered around this pivot point and so it doesn't make a huge difference. The boat will sit lower in the water when doing nothing and it may take a bit more effort to lift the back end up sufficiently to get the boat on the plane but a relatively small alteration on the nose of the boat will make a big difference to the running angle.

You could use a water ballast tank in the nose but that's dead weight and would take some adjusting with varying sea conditions (although we do it all the time with trim tabs). I wonder what non variable weight could go in the pointy end of the boat?

The cynic in me sees the engine - IPS shaft as an adaptor used so that the engines can still take standard shafts if need be. A hedging of bets just in case we pipe smoking, slipper wearing flybridge owners don't embrace modern technology

Henry

 

[EME]

All understood.

What I would say is the pivot point of a planing boat when underway is, I suspect quite a long way aft. The pivot point on a car when you're setting up suspension is actually under the Tarmac and I suspect boats will be the same. Most of the weight is gathered around this pivot point and so it doesn't make a huge difference. The boat will sit lower in the water when doing nothing and it may take a bit more effort to lift the back end up sufficiently to get the boat on the plane but a relatively small alteration on the nose of the boat will make a big difference to the running angle.

You could use a water ballast tank in the nose but that's dead weight and would take some adjusting with varying sea conditions (although we do it all the time with trim tabs). I wonder what non variable weight could go in the pointy end of the boat?

The cynic in me sees the engine - IPS shaft as an adaptor used so that the engines can still take standard shafts if need be. A hedging of bets just in case we pipe smoking, slipper wearing flybridge owners don't embrace modern technology

Henry

I really cant comment on the relative virtues of the 2 48 - footers as Ive driven neither and can only be guided by the MBY stuff in he public domain.

However bet-hedging on IPS vs Shaft in the same hull is, apparently, not an option. I've recently spoken with a real well-respected boat designer who is delighted with the results of IPS on a new purpose-built hull but openly admits a previous adaption of a non-IPS-specific hull was a 'pig'. He also stressed the importance of getting the right balance and interestingly spoke of head-sea slamming well before this thread and any MBY article.

 

[Nautical]

Having had some experience with IPS and various models fitted with them, first off, the only way they really work is if the hull was designed from the off purely for IPS. Trying to make them work on a hull designed for shafts rarely works. You need more hydro dynamic lift at the stern with IPS to compensate for the extra weight once you get moving, they seem to work best with a decent deadrise at the stern, the more flat bottomed or tunnelled the less the pressure on the mid V section and they then seem to squat more giving a very bow high ride. a slight wedge shape to the aft section of the hull seems to appear on quite a few boats with IPS and that is obviously there to give more downward trim at planning speeds. If the design was from the start for IPS and the builder has done proper tank testing then there should be no issues, problem is several dispensed with the expensive tank testing and went straight to tooling only to start fiddling with molds and trim later to make the thing ride properly. Get a good design and they are great, lots more aft cabin space, better fuel burn (although not always) and of course the icing is the joystick which turns you into a super skipper come docking time.

I was watching a J Craft (twin IPS 600's) come along broadside to a dock at Cannes in some considerable beam on wind and the ability to hold the boat off just a few inches from the dock in a gale of wind is worth gazillions in the credibility stakes when 100 people are stood there watching you. Skip had a fag in one hand and mobile stuck to his ear yacking away in Italian just twiddling the joystick while sat on the dashboard facing backwards. Looked effortless. Imagine trying to do that with twin sticks and bow thruster (which probably wouldn't have been man enough in 20 knots of beam wind to hold you there for ten minutes with out tripping out). With IPS you have 800 + hp working on hand rather than a 24v 10 hp twiddly prop'd thruster which goes kaput after ten mins on max poke.

I would say though as said by poweryacht the ZF system is nicer and seems to have less issues with trim and can give a sportier feel than the IPS.

 

[kahns one]

in just a few words, and this can be checked! Fairlines targa 48 and squadron 48 hulls were both designed around IPS UNITS THEMSELVES utilising the jack shaft as fairlines previous experience with the targa 44 IPS didn't really work for them! leading to the targa having an extended hull line using fixed tabs compensating for the weight position. By moving the engines further forward on jack shafts leaving the drives as far aft as possible and putting the fuel tanks in front of engines the weight is kept as close to the COG as can be, almost being where a shaft driven boats engines are an so better sea keeping, unfortunately princess did not learn from this and built there v48 with engines bolted straight to the IPS units as the Targa 44 was and has now had to undergo extra weight loading!!! hardly a massive weight gain or at all very complex!!!!