During the Breakfast Briefing before the opening of the Marine Equipment Trade Show today, the winner of the prestigious DAME Award 2014 was announced. Chairman of the jury, Bill Dixon presented the award to the Steering Traveller from Jefa Steering ApS of Denmark.

The jury praised the product for the way it offers a genuine solution to chain/wire steering. In its comments, the Jury stated that it is “always on the look out for clever design solutions that challenge the status quo to deliver obvious improvements for boat owners and builders. There were several examples this year but the standout entry was the Jefa Steering Traveller. This product removes the need for bulky steering quadrants and improves rudder feedback at the helm for twin rudder, twin wheel sailing yachts. Special attention has been paid to save installation space and weight as well as to eliminate backlash, which improves yacht handling.”

The Jury also reportedly appreciated the elegance of Jefa’s approach to this application, describing it as a commendable example of how current practice can be examined and redesigned to produce tangible improvement. Commenting on a strong field of entries, the Chairman of the Awards Jury, Bill Dixon, stated,“Developing new, well designed and innovative products is very difficult for relatively low manufacturing volumes. Nevertheless many of the companies that we recognised in this year’s nominations have looked at a problem, found a new and interesting way to solve it and come up with a confident solution. Others have discovered ways of making the boat builder’s life easier through better integration and ease of installation.

He continued, “Simple, elegant design with cohesive integration is the future; this is the challenge that the DAME Awards will continue to address by highlighting the achievements of the best entries.”

In addition to the overall winner, six category winners of the DAME were also announced today. METS is being held in the Amsterdam RAI Convention and Exhibition Centre, and will last until Thursday 20th November.