Nominations for the 2027 BOAT Design & Innovation Awards are open until 15 October 2026, and the judging panel has just picked up two significant names: London yacht designer Andrew Winch and Milan-based architect Patricia Viel.
The awards return as part of the Superyacht Design Festival, and they're built to reward something narrower than a finished yacht. Where the World Superyacht Awards judge a boat as a whole, this programme drills into the individual disciplines behind it, naval architecture, exterior styling, deck and interior layout, lifestyle features and tenders, with categories split by yacht size and type. For sailing yachts specifically, judges weigh how well spars integrate with the on-deck structure, not just the profile from a distance.
Winch's inclusion on the panel comes off the back of his own win. He took the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 ceremony in Kitzbühel, Austria, recognition for a 40-year run at the helm of Winch Design, the studio he founded after training at Central Saint Martins and Kingston School of Art, then apprenticing under designer Jon Bannenberg. The studio moved to full employee ownership in 2021, with Winch staying on as a trustee.
Viel brings something different to the table. ACPV Architects, the practice she leads, works in public and civic space rather than yachts, favouring shared, liveable design over anything built purely to impress. Pulling a judge from outside the marine industry entirely is a small but pointed signal about where the jury wants its scrutiny to come from this year.
Recent winners give some sense of what's being chased. The 122-metre Lürssen superyacht Kismet took both Outstanding Lifestyle Feature and Outstanding Exterior Design for motor yachts over 70 metres in 2025, the kind of dual win the categories are designed to allow for.
Entries close in two months. Whoever gets shortlisted will be judged, at least in part, by someone whose day job has nothing to do with boats at all.
