Metstrade yesterday announced that 53 products from 19 countries have been nominated to enter the final rounds of the 32nd DAME Design Awards.

An international jury of eight design and user experts assembled at RAI Amsterdam to spend two days examining 100 submissions. The 53 entries selected for nomination will feature on the DAME exhibition as standout examples of holistic design effort within the marine equipment sector.

“We knew right from the start of the judging process that many of this year’s entries had notable design qualities and that was subsequently reflected in the high ratio of nominations,” Andre Hoek, DAME jury chair said in a statement. “A good number of these are in close contention to win their categories.”

Metstrade director Niels Klarenbeek added in the statement, “The DAME Awards have continually evolved to reflect the onward progress of the leisure marine equipment sector. For 2023 we completely reconfigured the categories to better reflect the changing world around us. These updates were well received when we announced them earlier in the year and I’m pleased to see the new categories have worked well in practice, too.”

This year’s DAME Jury is made up of eight leading industry experts:

  • Andre Hoek (chair), naval architect and yacht designer, founder of Hoek Design and Hoek Brokerage, The Netherlands
  • Elaine Bunting, independent marine journalist, qualified yacht instructor and former editor Yachting World, UK (judged remotely)
  • Davide Cipriani, boat and industrial designer, president of yacht design at Centrostiledesign, Italy
  • Rory Coase, yacht designer, Coase Design, Norway
  • Ben Ellison, freelance marine technical journalist, Panbo marine electronics hub, USA (attended remotely)
  • Patrick Hemp, technical manager and trained designer, ICOMIA, South Africa
  • Arjen Jansen, senior lecturer, school for Industrial Design Engineering at
  • TUDelft, The Netherlands
  • Olivier Racoupeau, naval architect and boat designer, founder and owner of
  • Berret Racoupeau Yachts, France

The final winners will be announced at the Metstrade 2023 Breakfast Briefing in the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre on Nov. 15.