It's 10am on a Saturday in Bimini. You left Fort Lauderdale at sunrise, ran the V65 at 26 knots for two hours, and still have half your fuel. Your guests are on the bow with coffee. The sliding roof is open. The engines are quiet. This is what 1,083 gallons of range and twin MAN V12s buy you—not just speed, but the freedom to use it without constantly calculating the return trip.
The Princess V65 is a 67-foot sportscruiser that doesn't apologize for what it is. No flybridge. No tender on davits. Just a deep-V hull, 2,800 horsepower, and a layout that prioritizes open-air living over every other consideration. It's the boat you buy when you've already owned the 55-footer with the flybridge and realized you never used the upper helm. When you want to arrive fast, entertain well, and not think about it twice.
This is a boat for people who understand that four cabins at this length means real compromises below deck. Who know that MAN V12 service intervals are not cheap. And who are fine with both of those facts because what they're buying is a weekend weapon that happens to sleep eight.
Who It's For
The V65 makes sense for a specific type of owner. You're running weekend trips—Miami to the Keys, Newport to Block Island, Fort Lauderdale to Bimini. You want to get there in under three hours. You want your guests comfortable, not cramped. And you want a boat that doesn't require a permanent crew but can accommodate a delivery captain when you need one.
This is not a liveaboard. The owner's cabin is excellent, but the guest cabins are tight. The crew cabin is functional for a night or two, not a permanent arrangement. If you're planning to spend a month in the Bahamas with four couples, you'll want more space. But if you're doing three-day weekends with two or three couples and you value speed and deck space over stateroom square footage, the V65 is hard to beat.
It's also the right boat if you're stepping up from a 50-something-footer and you've realized that the jump to 70-plus feet means full-time crew, higher slip fees, and a different ownership model. The V65 sits in that narrow band where you can still run it yourself, still find slips without calling six months ahead, and still keep annual costs under six figures if you're disciplined.
Design & Layout: The Roof Changes Everything
The defining feature of the V65 is the sliding roof. Nine square meters of it. When it's open, the saloon and cockpit become a single 40-foot living space. When it's closed, you have a climate-controlled glasshouse. It's the kind of feature that sounds like a gimmick until you use it, and then you wonder how you ever lived without it.
The galley sits flush with the saloon, not down a step like older V-Class models. This matters more than it sounds. It means the cook isn't isolated. It means you can have six people in the galley-saloon area without it feeling crowded. And it means the whole main deck flows as one continuous space, which is rare on a sportscruiser this size.
The cockpit is where you'll spend most of your time. Folding table, wet bar with grill and fridge, electrically operated awning. The bathing platform has its own high-low controls and a passerelle that deploys from the step. The tender garage behind the transom takes a Williams 345 jet tender, though you're trading that volume against crew cabin space. Most owners make that trade.
The bow is a second social space. Sunbeds, bench seating, a cool box built into the center. It's the spot you use when you're stern-to in a marina and you want privacy from the dock. The escape hatch from the forward cabin is a nice touch—pull the tab on the headlining and a ladder drops into place.
Performance: Freedom, Not Just Speed
The V65 runs twin MAN V12-1400s. That's 2,800 horsepower pushing 80,418 pounds. Top speed is 36 knots. Princess publishes a top speed of 34 to 36 knots. Drop back to displacement speeds and you'll nearly triple that.
But the performance story here isn't about the top speed. It's about what that speed buys you in terms of flexibility. You can leave Fort Lauderdale at 8am, run to Bimini at 26 knots, spend the day there, and be back by dinner with fuel to spare. You can do Newport to Block Island in 90 minutes instead of three hours. You can outrun weather. You can change plans without worrying about whether you have the range.
The deep-V hull is stable at speed and comfortable in a chop. The ride is firm but not punishing. The engines are loud at full throttle but quiet at cruise. The helm is well laid out—self-centering wheel, wraparound dash with navigation, radar, autopilot, bow thruster, engine controls all within reach. There's a side door next to the helm for ventilation and quick access to the decks, which is more useful than it sounds.
The engine room has full standing headroom, which makes service easier. The fire suppression system links back to a manual pull handle in the deck locker. Fuel tanks run down the sides. Air-conditioning units are mounted around the space. It's a well-thought-out layout that doesn't make you squeeze sideways to check fluid levels.
Ownership: The Real Conversation
Let's talk about what it costs to run a V65. Purchase price is around $5.4 million. Annual operating costs will run 10-12% of that if you're using the boat regularly. Fuel burn is significant at the top of the rev range, as it is on any 2,800-horsepower sportscruiser. MAN V12 service intervals are every 1,000 hours, and they're not cheap. Budget $30,000-$40,000 for a major service.
Insurance, slip fees, and routine maintenance will add another $60,000-$80,000 per year. If you're keeping the boat in South Florida, expect slip fees of $4,000-$6,000 per month for a 70-foot slip. If you're hiring a delivery captain for longer trips, that's $500-$800 per day plus expenses.
The V65 is designed to be owner-operated, but most owners hire help for docking, maintenance, and longer trips. You don't need a permanent crew, but you'll want a good relationship with a local captain and a reliable maintenance team. The systems are comprehensive—full air-conditioning, generator, ice maker, washer-dryer, hydraulic bathing platform—and all of that requires regular attention.
Resale on Princess V-Class boats is strong. The brand has a loyal following, and the V65 is a proven platform. Expect to hold 60-70% of your purchase price after five years if you maintain the boat well and keep hours reasonable. The MAN engines are a plus for resale—they're known for reliability and there's a strong service network.
Where to Start
The Princess V65 is a boat that knows what it is. It's fast, practical, and built for weekend trips where speed matters. It's not trying to be a mini-superyacht. It's not pretending you can live aboard for a month. It's a sportscruiser that does sportscruiser things exceptionally well.
If you're looking at this boat, you're probably also considering the Princess S65, which adds a small flybridge, or the Sunseeker Predator 65, which offers similar performance with different styling. The Fairline Phantom 65 is another option if you want a flybridge layout. All three are excellent boats. The choice comes down to whether you value the open profile and that massive sliding roof, or whether you'd rather have the extra viewpoint of a flybridge.
The V65 makes sense if you're running 100-150 hours per year, doing weekend trips within 200 miles of your home port, and you want a boat that can get you there fast without requiring a full-time crew. It's the right boat for a specific use case, and if that's your use case, it's hard to find a better option.
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