DAME Design Award winners that cleared the deck

Boat and superyacht designers are in the hands of equipment manufacturers when it comes to the visual impact of installed products. That is true of any onboard location, but particularly obvious out on deck.

Over the past three decades the aft areas of power and sailing yachts have been a real focus for user experience improvement. Major naval architecture and exterior design changes have in turn spurred a whole plethora of new equipment launches to address changing trends in how deck areas are seen and used. Many of those products have achieved nomination or greater success in the DAME Design Awards.

Here we reflect on the impact of three DAME Design Award outright winners who entered products designed to improve owner experiences at the aft end of yachts.

Montague Smith Crane Davit – 1998 winner

To understand the significance of this product you need to remember that most motor yachts and large sailing cruisers at the time used traditional stainless steel davits to stow dinghies. These highly polished products were typically as aesthetically pleasing as you could make an angular shape, but heavy and not completely easy to use. Their underpinning design formula had not changed that much over the past couple of decades.

No surprise then that the Crane Davit made such a strong impression in the 1998 DAME Jury room. Manufactured using Kevlar reinforced epoxy resin in a one-piece moulding, it halved the weight compared to an equivalent capacity stainless davit, a useful saving at the extreme aft end of any boat. It also took full advantage of this construction method by utilising a pleasantly curved design that completely hid the inner workings of the davit including the installation foot and its bolts. Composite manufacture also enabled the option of ordering in custom colours to match the boat.

Another design feature of note was the fully integrated and enclosed winch, designed to be operated with a standard winch handle. It used epicyclic gearing to remove the need for brakes or ratchets, preventing the risk of runaways.

While the Crane Davit didn’t achieve widespread adoption, its emergence was right at the start of what turned out to be a complete rethink in the ways that boat tenders and toys were managed in future years. Every aspect of its design was unafraid to challenge current thinking, and it addressed the annoyances and needs of the people using this kind of equipment in ways that made it a pioneer, just as onboard dinghy handling approached its 21st Century revolution.

Besenzoni G 326 MAGIC hydraulic davit – 2002 winner

Four years after the Crane Davit appeared the Jury saw a further striking reinvention for dinghy handling, this time from regular DAME nominee, Besenzoni. The MAGIC hydraulic davit features a three-section telescopic jib with a reach of 1.43m and capacity of 300kg. When not in use the jib collapses and fully folds into a 490mm x 450mm x 600mm high composite clad enclosure, bolted to the boat’s stern platform. Control is via a wired waterproof remote control; a safety alarm sounds when the unit is moving.

The MAGIC was innovatively designed to take advantage of the boat building sector’s push in the early 2000s towards expanding bathing platforms using structures large and strong enough to host a small party or land a dinghy on chocks. This trend to expand deck real estate made sense – owners were often paying marinas for the overhang of their dinghy in davits – why not use that length for the greater benefit of all aboard. It was only later again that we’d all also realise the drive for people to feel more connected with the sea and the design impetus towards full beach clubs.

Back in the early 2000s Besenzoni could have chosen to tackle this brief in a much more functional way, but its aesthetically pleasing approach was also an important part of its concept and highly commended by the Jury. Ultimately, just as with the Crane Davit, this strikingly different entrant to the market improved the user experience considerably by making a real talking point of easy dinghy retrieval, in a package that enhanced, rather than spoiled, the boat’s looks.

The MAGIC still features in Besenzoni’s catalogue, a testament to the longevity of its concept and finished design. It has since been joined by a larger version, the G 336 BIG MAGIC with a longer jib to suit garage installations, 

Opacmare Teaky beach – 2007 winner

Given the rapidly expanding areas of flat deck aft on new boat designs how to further exploit it? That appears to have been Opacmare’s brief for the Teaky beach stern platform chaise longe – an electrically or hydraulically actuated sun lounger that folds up in position from the deck. The Jury found it to be a very comfortable place to hang out on deck with only the cushions to stow when it was time to revert to a flat deck again.

A superficial look suggests a relatively simply product, but underneath the skin you find a lift mechanism so carefully engineered that the Teaky beach only requires about 75mm (3in) of depth below the deck surface, avoiding impact on cabin height below. It is available in a single-backrest version, or as a deck chair with one fixed and three movable sections, in three width variants. It is operated by remote control and a digital control panel.

This is another DAME Design Award overall winner still in the manufacturer’s catalogue. Opacmare has also added models to the Teaky beach range including a retractable sunbed/bathing platform extension.

The Teaky beach stern platform chaise longe is admittedly a specialist product. It blurred the lines between the role of the builder and the equipment manufacturer as each play a co-equal part in integrating this kind of feature into the yacht. Something that, nearly two decades on, is becoming increasingly commonplace with transformer like features such as fold down aft bulwarks pioneered by past DAME Design Awards chair, Tony Castro with the Galeon 500 Fly in 2015.  

The DAME Design Awards

To learn more about the awards, please visit https://www.damedesignawards.com

What are your memories of the DAME Design Awards over the years?

For this special 35th anniversary year we are publishing a series of features looking at the overall winners – who they were, why they won and what they meant within the leisure marine sector.

We would very much like to hear the memories of anyone involved with nominated and winning entries since 1991, particularly the overall winners. If you can help us, then please email dame@rai.nl or contact the author of this series, Kim Hollamby via LinkedIn.