Thirty-five years ago, a handheld GPS receiver changed the way sailors found their way home. The DAME Design Awards have been charting that kind of quiet revolution ever since, and the anniversary has prompted a wider look at where equipment design goes from here.
Run as part of Metstrade, the awards mark their 35th edition this year. A series of retrospective articles has worked back through the archives to the very first overall winner in 1991, and the pattern that emerges is one of steady, often underappreciated progress. Despite boating's reputation as a slow-moving, change-resistant industry, the record of winners tells a different story.
That first award went to the Sony PYXIS IPS-360, one of the earliest handheld GPS receivers. It took boating from dead reckoning within a nautical mile or more to positioning within 100 metres, almost overnight, the accuracy civilian users were allowed under the GPS Selective Availability service of the day. By the tenth anniversary, judges were rewarding the Raytheon RL80C and RL80CRC Pathfinder Colour Radar Plotters, dual helm LCD systems that established the multi station control concept underpinning today's integrated MFDs.
Kim Hollamby, who has written the retrospective series, recalls using the Pathfinder system himself while skippering a dual helm motor yacht on a 4500-nautical-mile tour of Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and France in 1999. He describes it as transformative for both safety and convenience.
The second ever DAME award, in 1992, went to the Autohelm ST2000 tiller pilot, a model Hollamby notes is still in production within Raymarine's range today, even as semi-autonomous systems such as Volvo Penta's 2021-winning Assisted Docking system now go well beyond it.
Propulsion tells a similar story. Gori's folding three-bladed prop won in 1994, Van der Velden's rim drive hub-less propeller in 2005, and a fully integrated diesel hybrid drive from Steyr in 2008. Torqeedo's original Deep Blue electric outboard took the honour in 2012, and by 2023 the award went to Oceanvolt's HighPower ServoProp 25, a fully electric drive with variable pitch propeller and integrated hydro generation.
Looking forward, Hollamby sets out five areas he believes will shape the next 35 years of marine equipment design, describing them as his own subjective take.
Inclusivity is one. The industry has sustained itself largely on baby boomer customers for decades, he argues, and needs designs that cater well across genders and body sizes, with more focus on accessibility for mental health and physical disabilities, if it wants to attract a wider audience.
Generational knowledge transfer is another. Hollamby writes that he learned to fix things alongside his father, pulling engines apart and working out problems without instruction, but notes that many young people he works with today don't know how to wire a mains plug. YouTube and similar resources have filled some of that gap, he says, but future generations are much less likely to be confident DIYers.
Designing for serviceability and end-of-life disassembly matters too. Hollamby argues the industry needs to move away from sealed, break-and-dispose products towards equipment that can be serviced, upgraded and eventually broken down into recyclable materials, something he says even small companies could use to prove genuine environmental credentials.
Price accessibility is a sticking point. Hollamby quotes IBI editor-in-chief Ed Slack's October-November 2026 leader: "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." Accessibly priced equipment, Hollamby adds, is also essential for renewing boats within the ageing legacy fleet and for drawing new people into club, boat share, hire and charter markets.
And finally, total design. A product can look stunning, perform brilliantly and tick every sustainability box, Hollamby notes, and still fail if it's labour-intensive to install, badly executed, misses the problem it set out to solve, or is priced beyond reach.
This year's awards drew 153 submissions, the highest nominee count in 23 years, with 74 finalists on display in Hall 13. Winners will be announced at the Metstrade Official Opening on 17 November, between 0800 and 0930, closing out 35 years of quietly rewriting what boating equipment can do.
