UK, London. The winner of SuperyachtUK’s Young Designer Competition was announced yesterday at the London Boat Show in front of a packed room of industry experts and designers.

The hand-drawing skills of eight university students was tested over the 36-hour design challenge, working to a brief to produce the next innovative concept. The winner was David Rowles from Coventry University, scooping the top prize of a four-week paid internship at Pendennis Shipyard.

Speaking to SuperyachtDesign after the award ceremony, Rowles discussed the nature of his winning entry, “I’ve developed something quite simple, so anyone can understand it, and not just a designer.” Completing the piece after 10 hours of intense drawing, he admitted, “I didn’t get much sleep last night”.

The competition hopes to highlight the importance of hand drawing to all young designers. Rowles lamented the idea of this skill as a dying art, “I worked at Feadship over the summer and they are one of the few people that do still utilise their hands. They use tablets to draw on and it’s really fascinating to watch them work.”

Andrei Carausu, a student of Interior and Spatial Design at Plymouth University, impressed the judges with his leaf-inspired entry. Carausu discussed how hand drawing is still encouraged at university level. “Obviously the industry requires CAD as well … but we do try to mix them all the time,” he said. “All our projects start on paper using our hand drawing ability.”

A panel of superyacht industry professionals, including Peter Brown of Burgess Yachts; Philippe Briand of Philippe Briand; James Claydon of Claydon Reeves and Mark Tucker of Design Unlimited, judged the eight drawings. Entrants were marked on their ability to follow the design brief, their imagination and originality, the exterior and interior designs, and finally the feasibility of the concept.

Peter Brown praised all of the applicants and the standard of the work achieved. “I really think we may have one of the future big names right here in this room.”

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Winner of SuperyachtUKs Young Designer Competition announced

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