Marine equipment design: the past and future explored

Metstrade’s DAME Design Awards celebrates its 35th edition this year. As you’ll have seen from a series of articles on metstrade.com, we have been looking through the archives at the overall winners since 1991. Considering them collectively illustrates how the correct application design and technology has brought about important gains in terms of new business, user experience, accessibility and, in later years particularly, the environment. Despite the industry’s reputedly conservative approach to change (and end users’ reluctance to embrace it), the evidence suggests change has been constant and significant improvements driven.

Relive the DAME’s history of design development in our hall of fame

You’ll be able to make your own snapshot assessment of progress made by walking along our 35th anniversary hall of fame in the ramped corridor between Entrance C and Hall 13 this year.  

There you will see that our very first DAME Design Award went to one of the earliest handheld GPS receivers, the Sony PYXIS IPS-360. Boating had suddenly moved from knowing where you were to the nearest nautical mile or more, to placing your yacht within 100m at worst (as the GPS Selective Availability service offered civilians initially). Technology suddenly made coastal and offshore sailing more accessible and safe.  

As we ticked into the new century, developments in marine electronics were so fast that the 10th anniversary DAME jury was able to choose as its winner a highly functional dual helm station radar and chart plotter display system on LCD screens – the highly functional Raytheon RL80C & RL80CRC Pathfinder Colour Radar Plotters. These were the forerunner of today’s fully integrated MFDs. Their means of connecting the video feed between screens was quickly superseded but the concept of multi station control and monitoring throughout the boat had been established. I skippered a dual helm motor yacht 4500nm tour of Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and France in 1999 using the Pathfinder system and it was transformative, enhancing safety and convenience. The art of navigation had taken a major swing towards science in less than a decade.  

The DAME’s second ever award in 1992 went to the Autohelm ST2000, a tiller pilot that integrated everything in one unit that was required to steer a yacht, all in a hand transportable package. In the second decade of the 21st Century that model is still in production within Raymarine’s range. But we’re now seeing a small explosion of semi-autonomous control solutions that do much more than safely steer the boat on a set course, such as our 2021 winner, Volvo Penta’s Assisted Docking system.  

Propulsion technology has evolved to become more fuel efficient. In 1994 the DAME celebrated Gori’s development of the three-bladed folding prop for yachts. In 2005, we awarded the win to Van der Velden’s early example of rim drive hub-less propeller technology and just three years later a fully integrated diesel hybrid drive from Steyr. In 2012 the first ground-up designed higher horsepower electric outboard for small sportsboats and workboats from Torqueedo with its original Deep Blue and then fast forward to 2023, Oceanvolt’s brilliantly engineered HighPower ServoProp 25 fully electric drive with variable pitch propeller and integrated hydro generation.  

We’ve seen similar steps forward in all the product categories exhibited at Metstrade, from deck hardware and integration systems to safety equipment, clothing and much else besides. Take that journey along the corridor in Metstrade this year and pause just for a moment (ideally away from the people passing through!) to consider how much progress has been made.

Design focus for the next 35 years

So, what are the next big design priorities for the leisure marine equipment sector?

Here’s my completely subjective take on five areas where we need, and will see, progress in marine equipment design:

Designing for inclusivity

The whole marine industry has been able to sustain itself largely out of archetypal baby boomer customers for decades now, but is realising the huge, untapped potential in attracting a wider audience. For others to be encouraged in, we’ll need designs that can cater well across genders, all body sizes and beyond that, more focus too on accessibility for mental health and physical disabilities.  

Designing to accommodate the shift in generational knowledge transfer

In common with many others of my generation, I learned alongside my father how to fix stuff. He taught me how to pull it apart and stick it back together again – and more importantly, how to figure things out if you didn’t know what you were doing. The engine under your first car’s bonnet/hood was not disguised under sleek plastic undergarments and covered in electronics – so you could get spanners on. These days most youngsters I work with do not know how to wire a mains electricity plug (or are allowed to) – and why would they? There’s often much less time spent learning practical skills from parents and others. Consulting YouTube videos and the like have replaced this missing knowledge transfer to a certain extent, but our next generations are much less likely to be brave DIYers – or for that matter be particularly enamoured at the thought of fixing their own toilet blockage.

Designing for service and end of life disassembly

This point may seem counter-intuitive to the last one to some extent, but one of the biggest keys to opening the door for future sustainability is to make products serviceable, upgradable and, ultimately, easy to break into recyclable materials when their days are finally over. Moving away from sealed break-and-dispose-of-the-whole-product solutions is one of the most easily proven ways I can think of where even the smallest company can prove its environmental authenticity. These ideas are not so easy to execute and will take a generation or more of products to achieve, but it’s a good ambition. If a market develops for more easily renewing and upgrading a varied mix of products aboard, then a multi-skilled service centre model may become economically viable for our marinas too.

Designing for price accessibility

In his latest leader (IBI October-November 2026) editor-in-chief Ed Slack writes: “An industry that only serves the top of the market is not an industry with a future – it’s an industry in slow retreat. This is not primarily a pricing problem to be solved with a sharper discount. It’s a structural problem that demands a fundamental shift in thinking.” It’s tough when just about every other design priority and choice of better materials and manufacturing practices may push pricing up. But if we cannot get new technologies and designs into the market at accessible entry points then the industry as we know it will slide down the wrong side of the bell curve.  

A lot of the pressure on price sensitivity is on boat manufacturers and designers, but in turn are heavily reliant on their supply chains. Accessibly priced marine equipment is also essential for the renewing of ageing boats within the legacy fleet – these craft are essential for their ongoing role in retaining a broad user base and creating stepping stones into the market. And in terms of personal kit, any product at impulse purchase pricing will surely help to bring more individuals into club, boat share, hire and charter markets.

Remaining focused on total design

One of the things I like most about the DAME Design Awards is its focus on encouraging and rewarding total design in all aspects.  

It’s not enough for the product to look beautiful if it is labour intensive to install. It’s not enough for the product to offer strong sustainability credentials if it is executed so badly, few if any would purchase it. It’s not enough for it to look great, perform excellently and be 100% recyclable if it completely misses the problem that it set out to solve, or is so expensive that no-one could buy it.  

Many challenges of the next 35 years will demand fresh thinking in design, alongside the harnessing of course of all the new technologies and materials that will emerge. But the need to consider design in its fullest extent will remain a constant.  

I’ll have just celebrated becoming a centenarian if I am gifted the years to witness a 70th anniversary, but my sincere hope is the DAME Design Awards will continue to serve as an essential industry-wide reminder of what it takes to design a brilliantly executed product that meets its desired purpose in a highly efficient, desirable and price appropriate way.

About the DAME Design Awards

Metstrade’s DAME Design Awards is a much coveted globally recognised benchmark and endorsement of design quality in small boat, yacht and superyacht equipment. Juries of renowned designers and end user specialists have scrutinised more than 4000 products since 1991. Nearly half that number were commended with a nomination, from which 200 DAME Category Winners were named and then considered for the ultimate annual accolade of DAME Overall Winner.  

Metstrade fully funds the DAME Design Award’s costs as an important investment in the industry it serves. All entry fees are donated to charity, resulting in more than €330,000 of grant funding being awarded to 16 deserving causes since 2008.  

The products chosen as the best of the best will be drawn from the 74 nominated entries chosen by the DAME Jury this year, shortlisted from 153 submissions. This impressive field of entries, spanning many technologies and applications, is the highest number of nominees selected for 23 years. Browse all 74 by visiting the DAME Design Awards exhibition in hall 13.

All winners will be drawn from the 74 nominees and announced at the Metstrade Official Opening on 17 November at 0800-0930. You can subsequently read the full results and comments from the Jury at damedesignawards.com

Great design is more than skin deep

At 11:00 on 17 November the Metstrade Theatre will host a DAME Design Awards 35th anniversary panel on the topic of ‘Great design is more than skin deep’, with participants including past DAME Chair and renowned designer Tony Castro, current jury member Arjen Jansen from TUDelft and the DAME non-voting secretary, Kim Hollamby. See metstrade.com/programme for more details.