Seldén Mast Wins DAME Award
Bill Dixon, Chairman of the Jury of the DAME, presented the Award to the winner of the prestigious prize at the METS tradeshow in Amsterdam. The Jury Report on the DAME winner says: “Overall Winner of the DAME Award 2010 is the Seldén Reversible Winch of Seldén Mast AB. The Jury felt that this winch would have the largest impact on the leisure marine industry and would appear on many sailing boats in the future.”
“By backing the line off the winch instead of easing it by hand, there is greater safety for the operator. The backwind is operated from a push button in the handle of the winch, making it far more intuitive than a more conventional style winch that may use a switch located in the bottom non-turning part of the drum. Being hand operated ensures that the winch does not need additional below deck space and makes a winch retrofit extremely easy. When using the winch in either direction the line is captured by self-tailing device which sheds line easily when the winch is in the backwind mode.”
The DAME Award’s Jury chairman, Bill Dixon, commented on the opportunities of the nominations, “On this twentieth anniversary, I was delighted to see the number of new companies to METS that had also put products up for these awards among the 132 entries. One can see the tremendous effort that the nominees have put into identifying new product opportunities, and then ensuring that these designs meet the ever more demanding customer expectations. These are the products that we hope will excite the end user, to invest both in new boats and equipment, all designed to enhance the overall experience of today’s demanding boater.”
This year’s Category Winners are, in addition to Seldén in the Deck equipment, sails and rigging category, the ZS RopeSense by Spinlock (Marine electronics), the Barigo Steel Mel clock and barometer (Interior equipment, furnishings, materials and electrical fittings used in cabins), Jet-Trak by Global Marine Tracking Systems (Lifesaving and safety equipment), the Panda 45 i PMS generator by Fischer Panda (Machinery, propulsion, mechanical and electrical systems and fittings), the Mediterranean HD chart system by Navionics (Marine related software). In addition, the Converter NV Series by Officine Meccaniche Pejrani received the ‘most ECO-friendly product’ certificate. The SiMON2 yacht control software by Palladium Technologies and Mediterranean HD by Navionics also received an ‘innovative product’ certificate.