The Princess Experience

they are interesting to watch indeed. Particularly the episode about the F55 I liked with a factory tour where they make the 50-60 footers. I did not know they have various production halls dotted around Plymouth.
The tours are quite good no-nonsense style, but they could have showed a bit more technical stuff and behind panels etc.
 
It has been a long time since we toured the factory when our Princess was being built.
Regarding the various production facilities around Plymouth, we were told that they were (at that time) the second largest employer in Plymouth.
We were taken to see our boat on her production line.
At the time, the P67 shed had a production line of 5 boats at a time.

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And in the same shed 4 P58s

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Hulls were moulded in various facilities scattered around Plymouth.
The bare hulls were transported into the Newport Street factory and loaded onto cradles like this

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The shed doors are at the end so as they pushed the new bare hull on its cradle into the shed, the other 5 boats moved along the line.
The result was that the finished boat "popped out" of the end.
This is a photo of the first boat in the line.

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A gantry at the stern of the boats provided access to fit them out.

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The following are a few photos of the various stages of construction.

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It was close to Christmas when we made our first visit. JW's flybridge had just been fitted so we had to wait until the production line was safe for our visit.
But the staff knew we were coming and had decorated our boat with some Christmas wishes - a nice little touch that SWMBO liked.

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I've reached the STUPID limit of the forum's photos so I will continue on the next post.
 
Continues from #5

JW's had previously had her engines fitted so the engine room looked nearly complete

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But there was lots of stuff going on

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I managed to get a photo of the flybridge - it had been raining that day so there was still water on the new teak decks.

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Our factory tour took us to some of the other facilities around Plymouth.
Here are a few shots taken in the plant that was making all the internal woodwork.

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We were also shown some of the larger hulls being moulded.
Note this was a long time ago and now they use injection processes but this photo shows the scale of the operation that is going on in Plymouth.

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Outside the Newport Street facility, they launch and finish the boats off.

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This pic was taken a little later on a different visit to Plymouth.
The first time that we saw our boat "floating" - she is the one at the back behind the P58

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Even though these pics are now well out of date, I thought some people might find them interesting and worth the time digging them out and posting them.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed the memories.
And I hope that this post shows the scale of the Princess operation in Plymouth.
 
Amazing pics, thanks for sharing!

this is very interesting stuff. Do I see it correctly that your boat was built from the bottom upwards with decks, windscreen and side walls and the flybridge was added as a separate part? I thought with the newer builds they put the superstructure on the hull like a lid.

interesting to see that already then they had this production process like in a car factory. I recall reading somewhere that they started with that process for the P42.
 
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Hurricane said:
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Even though these pics are now well out of date, I thought some people might find them interesting and worth the time digging them out and posting them.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed the memories.
And I hope that this post shows the scale of the Princess operation in Plymouth.
Click to expand...
Great to see these @Hurricane. Quite possibly the golden age of Princess. On the radar for my next boat, maybe 2023.
 
Well you've managed more than me thats for sure. I got just 3 weekends in 2020 :confused: so about 12 hours! I even left the boat in this winter in the hope of getting some more in but.......... Wales. Forever confined to barracks. I dont hold much hope for 2021 either. How you got 45 hours in... marvellous! No wonder Roy is itching to move.
 
:) Yes, 45 hours but didn't really to go very far. A few trips to Yarmouth, Cowes, Lymington, the Itchen, WOT speed testing on Southampton water, various Solent anchorages, three training days practicing controlled crashing parking. Seemed to add up.

More telling perhaps is that I've only burned about 400 litres of fuel assuming the gauge is vaguely accurate, so about 10L/hour. Cheaper than walking.
 
Welcome to Episode Ten of The Princess Experience with Princess Yachts. In this month's episode we meet our Princess distributor for Australia, feature a walkthrough of the Y78, and take a tour of our metal workshop, in our brand home of Plymouth. We also talk to Tom Hill of Rivergate Marina and Shipyard, and Peter Staalsmid of Sevenstar Yacht Transport.

 
Welcome to Episode 11 of The Princess Experience series. In this month's episode we feature a walkthrough of the F62 flybridge yacht, take a tour of our facilities at Newport Street in Plymouth, meet with Devon based spirits company, Salcombe Distilling Company and meet the Emergensea Duo who will be undertaking a 3,000 mile unaided ocean row across the Atlantic from La Gomera to Antigua

 
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