The DAME Design Award has long-promoted design in all marine disciplines and recognised the best-designed products at the METSTRADE Show. Every year the winner’s list highlights some innovative technology and this year two of these products are particularly interesting for the superyacht industry.

Electric propulsion pioneer Torqeedo was awarded overall winner for its new family of cruise pod motors; Cruise FP. The range makes the adoption of ecological auxiliary power solutions a very practical proposition for a wide range of small watercraft – power and sail – and hints at the developing technology to come for larger vessels.

“Our pod motors mount under the boat with a fully electric drive train which doesn’t consume any space in the boat, except that you have to place the batteries somewhere,” explains Torqeedo’s COO Ralf Plieninger. “It is more lightweight than a comparable diesel engine and fulfills the needs of boaters for low-noise propulsion, flexible spacing and even has the option to regenerate electricity while sailing.”

The DAME Award’s jury praised the Cruise FP for its engineering and close attention to detail design, its integrated approach, its compact dimensions and its market realistic price. It sees this product as an exciting development that will promote green boating and create exciting new opportunities too for the interior design of sailing yachts by removing the need for a traditional engine space aft of the companionway.

In the marine electronics and marine related software category, Airmar Technology came out top for its new DX900+ MultiLog sensor – the industry’s first Bluetooth-enabled, dual axis electromagnetic speed log. As well as reading the direction and speed of travel of a boat, its unique function is its ability to read the sideways travel of the boat; an important step for the performance sailing market.

“It has been a lot of hard work but we think this is a revolutionary product,” says Airmar’s Chairman and CEO Steve Boucher. “For the first time this product allows the measurement of an important characteristic called leeway angle. This has historically been derived through a set of calculations that are non-instantaneous, so we saw an opportunity to provide something that the sailing market really needed.”

Other category winners at this year’s DAME Award included BCM Illuminazione’s Jolly Roger reading lamp, Harken’s Air Winch with performance optimisation gear sets, Securitag SAS’ Sea-Tags, TruDesign’s skin fitting installation tools and Zhik’s Avlare waterproof clothing range.

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