New steering system gets top award
Jefa steering wins DAME 2014 at METSBill Dixon, Chairman of the Jury, presented the prestigious DAME Award 2014 at the commencement of METS this month 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 addition to this overall winner, six category winners of the DAME were also announced during the Breakfast Briefing, the official start of METS 2014 which was held Amsterdam RAI.
In its comments, the Jury stated that it is: "Always on the lookout 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 said it 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 DAME Awards Jury, Bill Dixon, observed that it is commendable to see so much product development at a time when the marine industry has been experiencing a long period of constrained budgets.
"Developing new, well designed and innovative products is very difficult for relatively low manufacturing volumes," Dixon said. "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 though better integration and ease of installation.
"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."
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