The Evolution of the Seatrade Award Trophies

Seatrade introduced the Seatrade Awards in 1989 as a way of helping to stimulate and encourage technical innovation in the shipping industry by giving recognition to those companies and individuals that make substantial contributions. It was recognised that the shipping industry at this time, unlike most others of comparable size, had no international awards structure.

The Seatrade Awards have undergone a few changes over the past 20 years as detailed below:

1989 – 1996
The original trophy took the form of a gold and silver hollow globe ‘sitting’ in a ‘basket’ of staves, which was hand-crafted by local silversmith, Mark Munson.

Inspiration for the trophy was the idea that the world is kept up-lifted and spinning by a fountain/upsurge (the staves) of innovation, inspiration and creativeness from companies and individuals.

Although a stunning piece of art, the trophies proved time consuming and expensive to produce so an alternative option was sought.

1997 -1999
The brief was to produce a more cost-effective trophy with a greater maritime theme. The thought-process behind the resulting steel and wave design was a ship’s bow cutting through a sea of ideas and breaking ‘new’ ground.

This idea is still encapsulated by today’s Seatrade Awards logo.

2000 – Current
In 2000, a new approach was taken for the Seatrade Awards trophies. Seatrade commissioned top artists under the direction of Peter Layton at the London Glassblowing Workshops to produce original works of art on the theme of the marine environment.

The result was the spectacular glass wave created by glass sculptors Ulla-Tina Dahl-Tylen and Layne Rowe, himself an ardent surfer. “I returned from studying the waves in Rio to work on these” he said. The result is a series of blue and green sculptures, each different and individual, with technically challenging details such as tiny foam bubbles at the wavecrest.

The sculptures are mounted on maple plinths designed to compliment the shape of the wave and to evoke the feeling of curled driftwood.