UK Google searches for the Princess V39 have jumped more than 4,000 per cent, so we checked Princess’s own records to see what buyers of a discontinued sportscruiser actually get.
Every so often the internet decides, for reasons it does not feel obliged to explain, that a particular boat deserves the nation’s undivided attention, and this week it is the turn of the Princess V39, a sportscruiser that Princess no longer builds but which Google Trends shows racking up a rise of 4,150 per cent in UK searches. Nobody at Old Sea Dogs can say for certain what set it off, whether a well-placed listing, a nostalgic television appearance or simply a lot of people sitting at home in November dreaming about the Solent in June, but the surge does give us an excuse to go back to Princess’s own heritage records and answer the question every potential buyer is presumably asking, which is what exactly a V39 is and how it compares with the boat that replaced it.
The first thing to know is that there have been two very different boats wearing the V39 badge, which matters a great deal when browsing listings that may not always be precise about the vintage. According to Princess, the original V39 was built from 1994 to 1996, measuring 40ft 3in (12.26m) including the pulpit and 38ft 11in (11.88m) without it, with a beam of 12ft 3in (3.73m), a draft of 3ft (0.92m) and a displacement of about 7.5 tonnes, and the usual engine choices were twin Volvo KAD42/DP 230hp diesels, twin Volvo 5.8FI/DP 275hp petrol engines or twin Mercruiser D7.3L 270hp diesels, which tells you something about how different the sportscruiser world of the mid-1990s was from today’s.
The second and far more common V39 in today’s market is the MkII, which Princess records as starting production in 2012 and which grew into a noticeably bigger boat, with an overall length including pulpit of 42ft 6in (12.98m), a beam of 12ft 5in (3.81m), a draft of just 1ft 10in (0.56m), an approximate displacement of 9,100kg, 700 litres of fuel and 332 litres of water, and the usual engines being twin Volvo D6-330 DP diesels of 330mhp each. It also arrived to a remarkable amount of applause, with Princess noting that it was named Motor Boat of the Year for sportscruisers up to 45ft at the IPC Marine Media awards and then, in 2014, Best Worldwide Production Boat under 15m at the 10th Asia Boating Awards in Hong Kong, following what the builder called major successes in the UK and US.
Put the MkII alongside the current Princess V40, specifically the 60th Anniversary Edition that marks the six decades since the company began as Marine Projects (Plymouth) Ltd in a small industrial unit in Newport Street in 1965, and the family resemblance becomes rather more than a resemblance. Princess’s own figures give the V40 Anniversary the same 42ft 6in (12.98m) length, the same 12ft 5in (3.81m) beam and the same 1ft 10in (0.56m) draft, while it weighs in at about 9,592kg, carries 730 litres of fuel, 288 litres of water and an 85-litre black water tank, which works out at 492kg heavier, 30 litres more fuel and 44 litres less fresh water than its predecessor, and the V40 itself collected Best Sportscruiser up to 45ft at the Asia Boating Awards in Singapore in 2017.
That comparison explains a good deal of the V39’s enduring appeal, because a buyer looking at a well-kept MkII is effectively looking at the same basic footprint as a brand-new Princess at a fraction of the price, with the inevitable trade-offs of age, engine hours and the sort of upholstery that has spent a decade absorbing sun cream. As ever with any used sportscruiser, the boat is only as good as its maintenance history, and a sensible buyer will want a full survey, a proper look at the engines and drives, and an honest conversation about where the boat has been kept, because a V39 that has spent its life tucked into a South Coast marina is a very different proposition from one that has done hard seasons in the Mediterranean sun.
Whatever has sent the nation rushing to its search engines, the V39 remains a neat illustration of why British-built sportscruisers hold their place in the market long after the factory moves on, and of why Princess, still building in Plymouth, takes such evident pride in a heritage page that runs back through decades of models with surprising detail. For those tempted, the good news is that the V39’s successor is a known quantity with the same dimensions, and the even better news is that the boat everyone is suddenly searching for can still be found on the brokerage market by anyone willing to do their homework.