If you google the word ‘Innovation’ you are bombarded with a whole plethora of descriptions, terms and interpretations that essentially boil down to something ‘New’. By distilling the results of the search, you come up with words and phrases like ‘original’, ‘unexpected’, ‘fresh’, ‘never been thought of before’, ‘never been seen before’, ‘creative’, ‘useful’. This is often supported by statements like ‘What a great idea!’, and ‘Why didn’t anyone ever think of doing it before?’ The whole premise of innovation in my opinion, is the idea of challenging conventional notions of how things have been done before, and bringing ideas from one industry to another, in doing so improving and making things better.

With all this in mind, later this year we will publish a comprehensive report that highlights, champions and focuses on the most important innovations and ideas that have emerged in the past decade and more importantly, what innovations are just around the corner. The Superyacht Innovation Report will be published in partnership with METSTRADE 2020 and is designed to showcase some of the brilliant ideas and solutions coming from our industry’s supply chain. However, it is not limited to just equipment suppliers; we want to encourage suggestions from builders, designers, yacht crew and anyone in the superyacht market that has integrated an incredibly intelligent innovation into their latest project.

We want this to develop into a crowdsourced project, where anyone and everyone can highlight, propose and nominate an innovation/s they have experienced and/or developed that really is innovative and will come to be recognised as a ‘great idea’ and challenges convention.

Over the years we have seen some impressive yachts with vastly ornate or excessive interiors and hugely expensive finishes and rare materials, but behind this opulent façade, there are often great ideas, technical solutions and true innovations that go unnoticed. Our plan with this report, is to give those with the ideas - the true ‘innovators’ the platform to share with us their insights and solutions, in order to inspire and showcase how exciting and intelligent our unique industry is.

The key thing to recognise is that we are not looking for crazy ideas, things that don’t make sense or that have little or no real purpose. I remember someone showing me a million-euro cigar humidor, complete with a beautifully engineered cigar storage, preparation and cutting process, that would ultimately light it and provide a very expensive air sealed gap for your expensive ash. For some this may be a collector’s item, a unique piece of artisanal workmanship and engineering, but in my opinion does not represent innovation, but is indicative of something slightly vulgar and unnecessary.

During my tenure at The Superyacht Group, now spanning nearly three decades, I have met some incredible innovators and more importantly, some amazing owners who have innovated or challenged convention and built projects with incredibly important innovations. These owners were passionate and excited by innovation, adding technology from other industries or being told, it can’t be done, thus inspiring them to prove otherwise. I feel that by championing our industry’s true innovative character and highlighting the brilliant ideas that often go unnoticed, we can inspire future buyers to see the superyacht market as an exciting environment for innovation and great ideas and not just one of excess and opulence.

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