The Monaco Yacht Show has announced the six names who will judge the Blue Wake Awards 2026, the prize the show created to recognise environmental solutions within the superyacht sector. This year the jury has 71 entries to assess.
The award is in its second edition. It was created in 2025 and is run in partnership with the Water Revolution Foundation, the Dutch organisation dedicated to measuring and reducing the environmental impact of yachting.
Who is judging
| Judge | Role | Organisation |
|---|---|---|
| Lucy Dunn | Content Director | Boat International Media |
| Dr Vienna Eleuteri Held | Vice-President | Water Revolution Foundation |
| Toby Moore | CEO | Informa Prestige |
| Sara-Jane Skinner | Head of Partnerships | Blue Marine Foundation |
| Carlo Torre | Naval architect and owner | Monaco Yacht Temptation |
| Tom von Bonsdorff | CEO | Baltic Yachts |
The line-up says a good deal about the organisers' intent. There are two environmental bodies, one being the Water Revolution Foundation itself and the other the Blue Marine Foundation, a British marine conservation NGO. There is the specialist press, with Boat International. There is Informa Prestige, the group that organises the show. And there are two names from inside production: Tom von Bonsdorff, who has led Finnish yard Baltic Yachts since 2024 and came to yachting after overseeing the rollout of Finland's largest electric vehicle charging network, and Carlo Torre, a Genoa trained naval architect who in 1993 became Wally's first in-house designer and today runs Monaco Yacht Temptation.
Vienna Eleuteri is the figure most closely tied to the award's origins. A sustainability scientist, she developed the model that the UN and Unesco recognised as a Blue Solution, work that ultimately gave rise to the Water Revolution Foundation. She serves the organisation without pay.
The filter that comes before the jury
The most significant part of Blue Wake is not the ceremony but the stage that precedes it.
Entries do not go straight to the judges. They first undergo technical analysis by the Water Revolution Foundation, which tests each solution against the programme's criteria and against the evidence submitted by the company itself. The organisation is explicit in requiring claims backed by data and third party verification.
The assessment is organised around four areas:
- emissions reduction
- material circularity
- ecodesign and innovation
- protection of water and marine ecosystems
Only what survives that screening reaches the jury, which then picks the winners in each category.
It is worth understanding why this stage matters. Almost every superyacht launch today arrives wrapped in environmental vocabulary, and the sector had been accumulating criticism for failing to back those claims with figures. Requiring verifiable data before handing out a prize is the available answer to that criticism, and it is what separates a technical award from a marketing showcase.
Robert van Tol, executive director of the Water Revolution Foundation, summed up the reasoning when the programme launched: the initiative is about more than visibility, it is about credibility.
The categories have changed
In 2026 the award covers five categories:
- Tenders and water toys
- Luxury products and services
- Nautical suppliers
- New build and refit shipyards
- Yacht services, brokerage and charter
The new arrival is the last one. Until last year the prize looked essentially at manufacturers: equipment, materials, vessels. By opening a category for brokerage, charter and management, the organisers acknowledge that a boat's environmental impact is not settled only on the drawing board and in the yard, but also in how it is operated, chartered and resold across its working life.
It is a change of scope that makes practical sense. A superyacht spends most of its existence in operation, not in construction.
Who won the first edition
The 2025 winners help clarify the kind of solution the prize is after:
| Category | Winner | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Tenders and water toys | TYKUN | H1 hydrogen propulsion system |
| Luxury products and services | Tai Ping | Biophilic Programme carpets |
| Nautical supplier | Deasyl | low carbon marine fuel |
| Builder and refit shipyard | Sanlorenzo | Reformer fuel cell system |
| Special jury prize | Silver Yachts | REDUCE catamaran, aluminium and low impact |
Note that none of them is a distant future concept. These are technologies already applicable to boats under construction, and that is precisely the yardstick the organisers say they use.
Where the programme came from
Blue Wake did not appear out of nowhere. It is an outgrowth of the Sustainability Hub, the area the Monaco Yacht Show created in 2022 to gather companies with environmental propositions in a single space, and whose curation passed to the Water Revolution Foundation in 2023.
The limitation of that format was obvious: the companies stayed grouped in one corner of the show. With Blue Wake, recognition now follows the exhibitor wherever it is, on the quays and in the tents. In its 2025 pilot phase, the programme validated 59 environmental solutions from exhibitors.
When the results come out
The 2026 winners will be announced a week before the show. The Monaco Yacht Show runs from 23 to 26 September at Port Hercule, in its 35th edition, with around 120 superyachts and 43 world debuts.
For markets that are increasingly debating alternative fuels, waste management in marinas and lower impact materials, the winners' list is worth following. What shows up in Monaco in September tends to reach series production yards a few years later, and the requirement to prove figures rather than merely announce intentions is a practice the wider industry will need to adopt as well.
By: Redação Mundo Mar
Photo: Divulgação: Monaco Yacht Show
