2022 Pittman Innovation Awards

SAIL Magazine’s team of judges once again roamed boat shows near and far in an effort to uncover the best of the best. And as always, the industry did not fail to impress.

As many readers may have noticed, last year SAIL’s annual Pittman Awards were one of the many things that had to be cancelled as a result of COVID-19. Due to the complete lack of boat shows, trying to gauge the state of the industry with so little opportunity to see what it was up to simply didn’t make sense.

Fortunately, even as the world continues to battle the pandemic, we were able to get in a pair of stunningly successful boat shows in the United States this past fall, which meant it was game-on! Better still, as was also evident in the latest class of Best Boat winners the pandemic didn’t stop the marine business from doing what it does best—innovate.

Not surprisingly, things continue to race ahead in the area of digital tech. However, there remain those fun little analog advances to remind us there will also always be a place for good-old common sense. As always, we think SAIL’s late products editor Freeman K. Pittman, for whom these annual awards are named, would be impressed.

Here’s the list of division winners:

PERFORMANCE GEAR
• B&G Nemesis
• Vakaros Atlas 2 RaceSense
• Zhik OFS800 Offshore Jacket

CRUISING
• Scanstrut ROKK Wireless Nest and Catch
• Temo-450 Electric Outboard Wand

SAFETY
• ACR ResQLink View RLS PLB
• ICOM M94D Class-H VHF with AIS
• Sirius Signal – C-1002

ELECTRONICS
• Balmar MC-618 Regulator with SmartLink
• Digital Yacht NavAlert NMEA 2000 Monitoring System
• Garmin Surround View Docking Cameras

SYSTEMS
• Mastervolt MLI ULTRA 12/1250
• Kanvaslight by Guardtex
• RemigoOne Electric Outboard

For the full report, click here.