Young Designer of the Year Award Winners – Where Are They Now?

The prize for the 2019 Young Designer of the Year Award was scooped up by Yihharn Liu from Taiwan. Liu caught the judges' attention with her 80 metre motor sailer design concept Manta, which beat 41 other entries to the top spot. She originally entered the award as an opportunity to meet and network with fellow young designers. “I thought it would be a great opportunity to meet a lot of great people, all these young designers, and keep in touch with them and get to know each other,” she said, adding that she “had no idea” that she was going to go home with the award.

Since September, Liu has been undertaking a three-month Oceanco design internship. A place on the scheme was awarded as part of the winner's prize and saw Liu based at superyacht yard Oceanco's Monaco office for the duration of her placement.

Scooping the Young Designer of the Year award at the 2016 ShowBoats Design Awards kick-started a whirlwind year for Baoqi Xiao, who worked at De Voogt Naval Architects for six months, making several new proposals for Feadship clients with designers from the studio.

Due to graduate from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California later this year, Xiao is currently working on a follow-up to his winning design. Cerchio II is being developed in collaboration with 2010 winner Adam Vorhees with a particular focus on refining the onboard experience.

Timeless elegance was the theme of the year when Michael Givens took home the Neptune for his 76.8 metre concept. Dubbed KT, the winning design perfectly balanced traditional with modern, and featured fantail styling with a long classic sheerline, a beach club, plenty of deck space and a tender garage forward. The narrow hull form coupled with Azipod propulsion promised efficiency for this 1930s-inspired design specced for the first-time yacht owner.

Givens started his career in yacht design, working with Jonathan Quinn Barnett at JQB, Ltd. in Seattle, Washington. After working with Delta Marine and the Delta Design Team for four years, Givens has recently returned to JQB, Ltd. where he has quite a few projects in build, from large yachts to production boats.