Boat International Media is pleased to present the six finalists of the 2014 Young Designer of the Year Award, sponsored by the prestigious Dutch luxury yacht builder, Oceanco.
65m luxury yacht Project Granturismo by Stefano Inglese Vafiadis - The Young Designer of the Year Award 2013 Winner
The judges were very impressed by the quality of this year’s entries and selected six outstanding finalists, who now send in contention to receive the coveted Neptune trophy.
The 2014 Finalists are:
Lujac Desautel for Glass
Dennis Dreier for 60m SWATH Excelsior
Graham Kukla for 61 Meter SWATH
Raphael Laloux for Symphony
Jiantao Zhu for Swan
Daniel Zoghby for Coda
Entrants were posed with a realistic client request to provide valuable and authentic insight into the reality of working as a designer within the superyacht industry. The hypothetical owner required a child-friendly vessel that would suit an itinerary of extensive world-wide cruising. Meanwhile the task, based around the SWATH concept, asked contestants to exploit the advantage of the exceptionally stable platform provided by the unconventional underwater lines of the model, whilst creating an elegant and seaworthy yacht.
The shortlisting process was undertaken by an independent panel of esteemed judges comprised of designers and naval architects from a selection of world renowned design studios and shipyards. They analysed portfolio entries which included detail surrounding designer inspiration, sketches, exterior profiles and interior layouts. ‘The judges considered that the finalists were all of a particularly high standard considering the difficulty of the task,’ chairman of the judges Roger Lean-Vercoe notes in his report. ‘So high, in fact, that this year’s competition produced six finalists, as opposed to the usual five.’
All six finalists will receive the invaluable experience of an all-expenses-paid visit to award sponsor Oceanco’s inspiring shipyard in The Netherlands. The coveted Neptune trophy will be presented to the winner, together with a €5,000 cash prize at the ShowBoats Design Awards ceremony to be held at Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Kitzbühel, Austria on Monday 24 February.
Supplied by boatinternational.com
