Winners are grinners especially if you are Steber International

It's been an exciting, busy and rewarding couple of weeks for the team at Steber International, the east coast's leading fibreglass boat manufacturer.

Staff are still celebrating Steber's win at the 2013 Hunter Manufacturing Awards. Over 600 people at the awards dinner witnessed Steber take out the "Excellence in Product Design" award for the new 3800 SLR vessel range.

General manager, Alan Steber said the company has had ongoing success at the Hunter awards and in 2011 took out the major award of Manufacturer of the Year.

Award judges were loud in their praise of the design: "Decluttering the cabin area by using a cantilevered roof moulding is excellent functionality and is consistent with contemporary styling needs".

"The improvement in vision and ride quality at the helm contribute to increased safety and better ergonomics.

"This improvement is the best evolutionary design practice and indicates a commitment to an ongoing search for quality.

"Making provision for a future engine upgrade and general refurbishment makes economic sense but it also halves the environmental impact of each vessel.

"This, together with Steber's history of ever tighter production controls, is exemplary environmental management".

Meanwhile, in Sydney, Steber was a finalist in the Regional Exporter division of the Premier's Export Awards, as well as finalist in the Manufacturing category at the Manning Valley Business Awards, Taree.

Sydney was also the venue for the launch of the SSS Bluebottle range of unmanned surface vessels which attracted plenty of attention from world navies at the Pacific 2013 Conference, part of the Fleet Review in Sydney Harbour.

 The Bluebottle, tasked for ocean monitoring and surveillance, operates on energy available at sea – sun, wind and wave. With unlimited fuel supplies, the unique design provides an ideal surveillance platform that can be used for both above and below surface monitoring.