Winners Revealed for the 2020 BOAT International Design and Innovation Awards

Outstanding Exterior Design Sailing Yachts

Liara

Length: 34.1m

Exterior stylist: Malcolm McKeon Yacht Design

Naval architect: Malcolm McKeon Yacht Design

BuilderBaltic Yachts

With this selection, the judges were equally impressed with innovation and aesthetics. While Liara is not a huge yacht, her owner has big cruising plans. The boat is designed to take him and his wife on a safe and easy circumnavigation with careful thought on how to keep the cockpit dry and warm or equally shaded from the broiling sun. Yet competitive sailors often find it hard to abandon the excitement of racing completely, and eventually the brief to Malcolm McKeon changed to accommodate the occasional superyacht regatta, which led to the design and construction of a removable hardtop for the now multipurpose sloop. Carbon-fibre and foam cores infused and vacuum- bagged resulted in a light but strong top that can easily be removed by the crew and stored ashore. The fact that Liara presents a lovely profile in both cruising and racing modes is noteworthy. Accommodating the gear of a racing boat without torturing a cruising layout was addressed by individual deck access bins for large racing sails and clever ’tween deck positioning of most sheets, winches and sheaves, a feature that keeps the deck safe and uncluttered for passages.

Best Motor Yachts Interior Design – below 500GT

Calypso

Length: 36m

Interior design: Vickers Studio

Naval architect: Van Oossanen Naval Architects

Builder: Mulder

In Calypso's rich and detailed beach-house- style interior, designer John Vickers cleverly incorporated Mulder Shipyard’s 80-year history in design elements and construction techniques such as an illuminated art wall that hints at a wooden sailing ship. A bar decorated with diagonal planking is reminiscent of cold-moulded construction. The easy, well-proportioned layout featuring some built-in furniture to direct traffic flow, is appropriate to the relaxed raised pilothouse form and fits in a generous main-deck master suite and a full-beam VIP below. The decor relies on pale bleached oak, stainless steel, leather, light fabrics, louvred doors and lots of natural light spilling in through large windows. It’s a beachy, barefoot look but elegant lights and hardware make sure it’s chic, giving it an upmarket Ibiza vibe. To maximise the feeling of height, Vickers relied on a few indirectly lit tray ceilings, a theme of wall washers and lights recessed under furniture for iPad-controlled ambience. So complete was the design that when the yacht was purchased from Nick Mulder midway through construction, the new owners changed nothing but the angles of the saloon sofa backs and commissioned paintings.

Best Motor Yachts Interior Design – above 500GT

Lady S

Length: 93m

Interior design: Reymond Langton Design

Naval architecture: Feadship De Voogt

Builder: Feadship

The result of a lengthy design and build process where perfection was paramount, Lady S pleased the judges with a complex, multilayered interior that manages to pair extreme elegance with fun and entertainment.The interior reads as mostly white to serve as a foil to the turquoise colours of the family’s favourite cruising grounds. The range of exquisite materials and details employed creates enough drama to keep guests intrigued no matter the length of the stay. A clever layout showcases adaptability for charter with either four, five or six cabins on main deck, plus a pair of staff cabins with access to both crew and guest passageways. The owner’s deck lounge can transform into a disco with interactive dance floor. Lady S was built to house the first floating IMAX cinema, which spans two decks and is large enough to seat all guests at once. A separate boarding entrance for the theatre is a nice touch. Locating the beach club and gym on different decks provides guests with elbow room, as do folding terraces and balconies off cabins. Large pantries on each deck, two galleys and multiple crew stairways are part of the well-conceived service plan.

Copyright Edmiston

Judges' Commendation: Lighting

Excellence

Length: 80m

Interior design: Winch Design

Naval architect: Abeking & Rasmussen

Builder: Abeking & Rasmussen

Yacht lighting has improved steadily during the tenure of this awards programme yet there are yachts whose designers and builders push the envelope to create special ambience and extra dimension through lighting. Judges debated several interior design contenders as deserving special mention for the use of artificial light, but gave the nod to the stunning 80m Excellence. The yacht has a very personal interior inspired by the owner’s interest in automobiles, art and sculpture. Its well-executed lighting plan, which includes column details, discreet downlights and well-placed spotlights, such as a beam trained on the centre of a coffee table, strikes the right tone and emphasises all the right areas. Tunable and warm, the lighting is a perfectly balanced complement for the yacht’s bright, contemporary interior. Clever use of mirrors throughout the interior adds to the effect of the lighting. There are mirrors behind louvres in the main saloon, making the casing around the ventilation shafts disappear, and thin mirror strips around the top of the walls in the cabins give the impression of even more space. The use of indirect lighting then enhances these effects.The judges also noted that Excellence’s multistorey atrium with its exceptionally large wall of windows presented both an opportunity and a lighting colour balance and fixture location challenge for the design team, one that they handled beautifully.

Best Sailing Yachts Interior Design

Liara

Length: 34.1m

Interior design: Adam Lay Studio

Naval architect: Malcolm McKeon Yacht Design

Builder: Baltic Yachts

The overall decor and the usefulness of Liara’s interior layout earned the top score in this category. Weathered-looking oak joinery and easy- care textured materials in warm colours met the owner’s brief to recall the look of the Channel Islands and lend an appealing backdrop for world cruising. An open plan flows from the cockpit accessed through a wide glass door to the recessed saloon and down three steps to a study occupying the same level as the master and VIP cabins. The deckhead recessed between structural beams creates a feature and maximises height in the sleek, low deckhouse. The dining and coffee table surface finishes mimic ripples – as when a pebble is dropped into a pond. Hanging locker doors are also designed to echo the appearance of water or tree bark and lighting is carefully positioned to highlight these elements. The experienced owner was closely involved with the design of a sliding track and box system to utilise undersole stowage spaces and a requirement for large crew quarters with clear separation between laundry, crew mess and galley. A ship’s office thoughtfully converts to an extra crew cabin for regattas.

Best Naval Architecture Displacement Motor Yachts

Najiba

Length: 58m

Naval architect: Feadship De Voogt/Philippe Briand

Builder: Feadship

There were six highly qualified finalists in this competition and the final analysis was made more difficult by the secrecy surrounding one of the contenders, nevertheless, our naval architecture sub-committee was able to rate the data. Of particular attention in the full displacement category are the issues of efficiency as borne out by details of range and horsepower for given displacements, and efforts made to reduce drag. The two top scorers in this analysis were an unlikely pair with very different gross tonnages, Najiba and Flying Fox.Interestingly, the core mission for both was the same – comfortable long-range cruising. While Flying Fox had advantages stemming from waterline length (at 124m), Najiba exploited the benefits of a relatively narrow beam (at 11m). In comparative analysis, the approach taken by a naval architect noted for his sailing yacht designs – Philippe Briand – working in concert with De Voogt Design presented a more efficient hull form and one more innovative and forward - looking in its approach. In sea trials, Najiba had average fuel consumption of just 11.4 litres per nautical mile at 12 knots and a range of 6,000nm-plus, more than 1,000nm over the estimate.

Copyright Feadship

Outstanding Lifestyle Feature

Bold

Length: 85.3m

Lifestyle feature: The Loft/Winter Garden

Interior design: SilverYachts

Exterior stylist: Espen Øino

Naval architect: SilverYachts

Builder: SilverYachts

This year's judges could not have predicted how varied the 18 entrants in this category would be and how difficult the selection of a winner, even after the field was narrowed to eight finalists. While all were aesthetically outstanding and contributed a unique feature to their yachts, one stood out for showing something new, delightful and undeniably Bold. With this latest offering from SilverYachts, a brand known for innovation, designer Espen Øino put a new spin on the typical upper saloon or owner’s deck saloon by creating a multifunction loft-style winter garden space. On those occasions when a helicopter needs to be housed in the hangar below, a section of the winter garden floor can be raised to accommodate it and appears as a table/room divider. As if the floor-to- ceiling windows surrounding the full beam space weren’t enough, these glass walls are capable of folding, sliding and stacking out of the way, fully or in part, to create an outdoor living space in the same footprint, allowing the owner to entertain guests for indoor or outdoor dinner parties. Glass balustrades on the fixed railing prevent any intrusion into the endless views.

Innovation of the Year

4-Ply Complex curve structural

On board: Syzygy 818, Feadship

Developer: Jarkko Jämsén/EOC Engineering/Feadship

Naval architecture: Feadship De Voogt

Featuring giant slabs of perfectly clear glass that are both vertically and horizontally curved, Syzygy 818, the first superyacht designed by Finnish naval architect Jarkko Jämsén, displays a remarkable feat of engineering and construction. This all-glass envelope is an integral part of his theme, bringing the outdoor environment into intimate contact with the interior. Jämsén took the concept of structural glass a step further by curving the glass to control and slow the movement of reflection across the surface. The glass envelope on two and a half decks is fundamental to the watertight integrity of the yacht and was meticulously examined by Lloyd’s. These panels are coupled to each other on the sides, with connections to the ceiling and floor constructed so that the boat flexes around the glass. Being structural from ceiling to deck, the four-layer panels are made of two types of low-iron glass. One has a reflective coating, while a neutral grey film interlayer controls the amount of sun light entering without distorting colour. Eckersley O’Callaghan, a London-based company famed for its award-winning work with structural glass, developed a unique mathematical formula for each panel, some of which are 3m wide, 2.7m high and 4.5cm thick.

Copyright Feadship

Tender of the Year – Limousine

Solas

Length: 11m

Builder: Knierim Yachtbau

Naval architect: Beiderbeck Designs

Exterior stylist: Beiderbeck Designs

Interior design: Beiderbeck Designs

The top tender of the year in the limousine category stood out immediately in a field of very strong candidates with numerous notable features such as good looks, good comfort and, importantly, the ability to fit snugly inside a yacht garage witha total height of just 2.4m. However, this 11m tender, part of a pair custom-built at the Knierim Yachtbau yard in Kiel for a Lürssen, offers something new over all the other candidates. It can serve both as the guest tender with comfortable accommodation in a sheltered, air-conditioned interior that will deliver 15 dry guests to shore at speeds up to 30 knots, thanks to two Volvo Penta D3 220 engines. At this speed, even water-skiing is an option too. And the Solas tender can also hold up to 38 people when acting as a rescue boat in an emergency. Along with uncommon features such as a bar with a refrigerator and a comfortable wet room, its design and construction comply with stringent SOLAS rules. It is fire resistant and can be dropped to launch, plus it is certified to withstand the most rigorous sea conditions. In essence, it serves two functions, solving an issue that has plagued the industry for years: the need to carry several auxiliary boats.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Martin Francis

Company: Francis Design Limited

Nationality : British

First Yacht Design: Prototype,1978

From his first 14m sailboat, Prototype, to 119m Motor Yacht A, from a Rolling Stones stage set to Swarovski crystal fabrics, and from his work with architect IM Pei on the Louvre’s glass pyramid to inflatable Tour de France event platforms, Martin Francis is a designer who can’t be pigeon-holed into just one field. Born in Britain, Francis, a furniture design graduate of Central St Martins College of Art and Design, started out as a cabinet-maker for high-end shops and private clients in London. He soon began to work with structural engineer Tony Hunt, who introduced him to a rising architect named Norman Foster. They collaborated for two decades. In 1981, he co-founded RFR, a firm noted for pioneering cable-braced glass walls. Boats came about by accident. Britain’s financial crisis of the mid-1970s sent him packing to the South of France, where he found work building sailboat masts. The decision to sail the world with his family led him to design and build his own boat. Racing it locally led to commissions and the 28.2m Diablesse established him in yachting – by 1985, the four largest sloops in the world were his design. In 1988 Emilio Azcárraga offered him his first motor yacht project, which became 73m Eco. With innovative design, high speed and radical use of glass, Eco was the springboard that launched subsequent commissions for yachts as small as the Silver Arrow Granturismo, as unusual as Senses and as large as Golden Odyssey, and now cruise ships in excess of 120,000GT. Throughout his career from architecture to fine art, Martin Francis has brought to the table innovation and collaboration, enthusiasm for his craft and a profound artistic nature.

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