IMPERIAL PRINCESS BEATRICE is the first Princess 40M ever built, and she still carries the argument that won her a World Superyacht Award in 2013: that a British production yard, working at scale, could deliver a forty-metre yacht with the finish and the sense of occasion of a one-off. More than a decade and a full 2022 refit later, that case still holds.
Her headline feature sits on the main deck. IYC lists fold-out balconies on both sides of the salon – a Princess 40M signature, and a piece of engineering that larger yachts charge a great deal for and few yachts at forty metres offer at all. None of the photography shows them deployed, so take it as specified rather than as pictured.
The interior around it is warm and quietly formal: dark walnut joinery, cream and dove-grey upholstery, travertine and mosaic in the bathrooms. The main salon runs to two sofa groups around a low table, and a formal dining table sits forward of it against the joinery, seating the full party under a run of glass. A lobby amidships opens to the side decks through glass doors on both beams, which keeps the circulation light rather than corridor-bound.
Five cabins sleep ten – a deliberately generous ratio at this length, and one of the reasons she charters well with two families rather than one large group. The master carries a padded leather headboard, an armchair and a hull window at the beam. Below, two doubles and a twin share the same walnut and grey palette, each with its own bathroom in travertine, and a further guest cabin completes the layout. Nothing is squeezed.
Outside is where a Princess 40M earns her keep. The sundeck carries a spa pool set into the teak, sunpads forward of it and a shaded lounge and bar aft, all on one uninterrupted level. The aft deck below seats everyone for dinner under the overhang, and the bow opens into a sunpad with the anchor gear tucked out of sight beneath a hatch. Aft, the swim platform lowers to become a beach, with three Seabob F5S, two Sea-Doo jet skis, an eFoil, kayaks, paddleboards, wakeboards and towables laid out on the teak.
The tender programme is unusually serious for the size. Alongside a Tempest 460, she runs a Saxdor 40 GTO as a chase boat with its own dedicated captain – which means the yacht can stay at anchor while a second, fast boat takes guests ashore or to lunch, rather than the whole vessel having to move. Ten sets of snorkelling gear and fishing tackle round out an inventory that assumes everyone aboard will actually get in the water.
She works the western Mediterranean, and eight long-standing crew run her. For a charter party of ten who want the western Riviera done properly – short hops, good anchorages, a fast boat for the evening and a main deck that opens to the sea on both sides – she is a well-judged and increasingly rare thing: a first-of-class yacht that has been kept as well as it was built.
