Princess X90 reaches sea trials with 16 already on order

A new model, and a full order book before launch

The first X90, completed at Princess's South Yard in Plymouth, launched in May 2026 and is now running sea trials, with a global debut booked for the Cannes Yachting Festival in September. Princess sold seven of the 27.1-metre yachts before that first hull touched the water, and four more are in build. BOATPro puts the total on order or under construction at 16.

For a buyer, that order book is the number that matters. A model with a queue behind it tends to hold value better than a one-off, and it signals the yard will keep the line and its parts supply running for years. The X90 fills the space between the 24-metre X80 and the flagship X95 Vista, the part of the range where Princess sells the most boats.

A hull built to burn less fuel

The headline engineering change is a new Hybrid Progressive-Planing hull, drawn with British naval architects Olesinski. Princess says it needs about 10 percent less power above 16 knots than the Y85, while matching that boat's fuel use below 10 knots, and it does so while carrying roughly 18 tonnes more weight.

Fuel and range read straight through to running cost and to how far an owner can cruise between fills. A hull that does more with less is the kind of change that shows up on the annual bill rather than in a brochure, and it is a claim a buyer should ask the yard to demonstrate on a sea trial rather than take on paper.

Deck space aimed at the owner who uses the boat

Above the waterline the X90 leans into open-plan living. The cockpit sits low and flush with a glass transom and fold-down balconies to either side, curved patio doors fold the saloon into the aft deck, and a Super Flybridge adds a skylounge over an enclosed helm. The main deck runs on one level from the saloon to the owner's suite forward.

That layout is a pitch to the owner who spends time aboard rather than the one who charters the boat out. Single-level main decks and a large social cockpit are what sell at this size, and Princess is betting the format carries the X90 through Cannes and into the four hulls already following the first down the line.

Sea trials proved what, exactly, about the X90's underwater shape?

The number worth reporting from this milestone is not 16, it is 10 percent, the power saving Princess claims for the new hull, and that claim now rests on a boat that has been in the water rather than a rendering on a stand.

The X90 introduces what Princess calls a Hybrid Progressive-Planing hull, developed with British naval architecture firm Olesinski rather than carried over from an existing platform. The brief was blunt: the X90 carries roughly 18 tonnes more displacement than the smaller Y85, driven by the extra structural volume needed for the cockpit layout and the raised super flybridge deck, and that weight had to be absorbed without a matching fuel penalty. Princess says the resulting hull geometry needs about 10 percent less power above 16 knots than the Y85 once normalised for the difference in displacement, and matches the Y85 on fuel burn below 10 knots despite carrying the extra weight. That is an efficiency claim rather than an independently verified test result, but it is the specific number Princess itself has chosen to put behind the hull.

Princess offers the X90 with three engine options: twin MAN V12-1900 units at 1,900hp each, V12-2000 units at 2,000hp each, or the range-topping V12X-2200 at 2,200hp each, with quoted top speed moving from around 26 knots on the base pairing to a claimed 28 knots on the highest output engines and a stated cruising speed of 22 knots. Fuel capacity is 11,000 litres. The first hull, named Jenny X, was launched from Princess's South Yard in Plymouth in May 2026 and underwent sea trials through the summer covering propulsion, handling, onboard systems and hull performance, before being delivered to her owner in August 2026 ahead of her world debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival in September. None of the trial reports so far disclose an independently measured top speed or fuel figure from the water, only the yard's own pre-trial projections.

Why did buyers commit to the X90 before a finished hull existed to inspect?

The X90 is the first cockpit motoryacht Princess has ever built inside a range otherwise defined by flybridges, and that departure from the yard's own formula is a large part of why buyers signed before a finished hull existed to inspect.

The X90 sits between the 24.3 metre X80 and the flagship X95 Vista in Princess's X Class range, a line the yard has been repositioning for five to six years with exterior stylist Pininfarina and naval architect Olesinski around what Princess calls super flybridge design, upper decks that run almost the full length of the hull to free up main deck space. The X90 pushes that further: it is Princess's first cockpit motoryacht, with a low beach-club-style aft cockpit, a glass transom and fold-down bulwark balconies, and curved glass doors, a first for the builder, linking the cockpit to a dining space that seats up to ten. Layout is equally flexible, a forward owner's suite with wraparound glazing, a choice of three or two guest staterooms, and an open or fully enclosed galley, options a traditional flybridge hull of this size rarely offers in the same footprint.

Princess Yachts CEO Will Green has tied the sales momentum explicitly to that engineering and layout departure rather than to price, calling the X90 a boat that introduces a revolutionary new hull platform that will redefine what owners can expect from a luxury yacht of this size, and separately describing her as a bold step forward for Princess that combines innovative design with advanced engineering. Pricing itself is undisclosed. Every dealer network carrying the model, including Princess Yachts Monaco, SI Yachts and Merk and Merk, lists the X90 as price on application rather than with a published figure, which makes 16 commitments in this segment notable for the opposite reason a published price would suggest: buyers are underwriting a new hull, a new deck layout and a first-of-type build slot on the strength of the yard's own performance claims and a design language it has spent half a decade building trust in.