France, Italy and Greece are represented at the Best of Boats Award with new jurors. The jury is growing to 15 professional testers.
The Best of Boats Award will enter its 12th year in 2025, and the partnership between the largest motorboat award in Europe and Boot & Fun Berlin, as premium partner and host of the prestigious awards ceremony in November in Germany’s capital, has just been confirmed again.
At the same time, there has been an update to the BOB jury, which has brought together the best motorboat journalists from the most important European boat magazines since its start in 2014. Together, they find the best motorboats that will go into production this year, based on hundreds of boat tests.
New to the BOB jury for the 2025 water sports season are Chiara Riveruzzi from Italy, Geoffroy Langlade from France and, after a long break, BOB founding member Gerasimos Gerolimatos from Greece. This means that the renowned Best of Boats Awards jury now has 15 members, representing more countries than ever before from Spain to Poland, from Finland to Greece.
Three boat specialists, one shared idea
What unites the three very different new BOB boat writers is that they all share their expertise working for the most prestigious boat magazines in their countries. Chiara Riveruzzi from Rome has been writing for the Italian high-class magazine ‘Mondo Barca’ for over a decade. In her free time, she is also an active scuba diver.
In his 30-year career as a boat journalist between Paris and Nice, Geoffroy Langlade has founded boat magazines, headed up editorial teams and presented maritime topics as a TV host. Today, he is the editor in chief of ‘Boat Heroes’, one of the most successful new French boat magazines. Being part of the Best of Boats Award is perfect match for Geoffroy Langlade – because of the ‘high quality of the jury, the friendly atmosphere and the diversity of the journalists and countries represented’.
A man of the first hour is back: Gerasimos Gerolimatos was part of the founding generation of the Best of Boats Award in 2014. The Greek water sports journalist, publisher of the magazine ‘Skipper On Deck’ and organiser of the Olympic Yacht Show in Athens again a BOB jury member. One reason for this is the new category ‘Best Big Boats’, because large motor yachts over 45 feet for ‘GG’ are the best-known segment.
Hundreds of tests all over Europa, public voting is back
The 3 female and 12 male jurors from all over Europe and the USA will once again take the most interesting new boats of the 2025 model year out for test drives during the upcoming boating season – and have a thorough look on them. In contrast to the practice of other awards, the new boats are tested without exception by at least five jurors, who represent all the major European boat-building nations and boating areas.
The best powerboats of the year are then ranked and selected in a neutral, standardised evaluation from the several hundred boat tests under real conditions. Shipyards can make the jury members’ tightly scheduled programme until the summer even tighter with an application of their own newly launched boats.
The best boats of the year in six categories then go on to the final round of the Best of Boats Award 2025. The announcement of the BOB finalists is synchronised with the start of the in-water boat shows from Werder to Cannes, where many of the boats can be seen in their element.
After the Europe-wide public voting for boat fans on bestofboats.com – successfully introduced in 2024 – and the secret jury voting of the winners, the prestigious awards ceremony with representatives from all the boatyards, the jury and numerous boat show guests will take place on the opening day of Boot & Fun Berlin 2025.
The timing of the Best of Boats Awards 2025 at a glance
- Announcement of the finalists: 1 September 2025
- Start of public voting: 1 October 2025
- Announcement of the winners: 27 November 2025
