The Swan 88 wins the Boat International Eco Award

The Boat International Design and Innovation Awards took place in Kitzbühel last night, and the hybrid yacht DreamCatcher was awarded the Neptune for the Eco Award category. This achievement recognizes the great effort made by Nautor Swan to work on sustainability on sailing boats generating and storing energy under way.

The Swan 88 is the latest model launched by Nautor Swan, which debuted at the Cannes Yachting Festival and Monaco Yacht Show with its diesel-electric propulsion system. A unanimous decision named the Swan 88 DreamCatcher as the winner of this year’s Eco Award.

The yacht is powered by a fully integrated Deep Blue system made by Torqeedo. The customized system developed for DreamCatcher includes a 120kW electric drive system and 160kWh of energy storage, delivering silent motoring at a maximum speed of 11.4 knots.

The judges noted the boat’s ability to generate power while underway. In hydrogeneration mode, Deep Blue’s algorithms continuously monitor and adjust performance several times per second, providing renewable, wind-powered energy production while minimizing impact on sailing speed.

With DreamCatcher, Nautor Swan worked in partnership with a highly skilled owner to develop a propulsion system that allows the yacht to run on batteries alone at full speed, with sailing capable of regenerating enough power to keep the hotel and sailing operations going and remain entirely self-sufficient.

This propulsion system is being studied for adaptation across the entire range, from the Swan 51 to the maxi range.

Giovanni Pomati, CEO of Nautor Swan, says: “I’m really proud that DreamCatcher has been awarded with the Eco Award for the Yacht delivering the best concept in terms of Eco/ Sustainability/ Self Sufficiency. This is very important for us at Nautor Swan, who trusted our partners—first of all the owners, who challenged us with such a big project. Then, together with Torqeedo, we developed a solution that helped us achieve our goal. Now we want to extend this technology throughout the range, making sailing even more sustainable than it already is, while also exploring hydrogeneration propulsion.”

The winners of BOAT International’s Design & Innovation Awards have been revealed at the Superyacht Design Festival’s annual ceremony, attended by the industry’s most celebrated designers, naval architects and shipyards. Held in the Austrian ski town of Kitzbühel, the awards acknowledge everything from styling and naval architecture to groundbreaking innovations of today’s most impressive superyacht.