The Cruising Club of America this year will raise a toast to four sailors who each will receive time-honored awards that recognize outstanding feats of seamanship. Three other awards will go to club members for their accomplishments as well.
The Blue Water Medal goes to British sailor Jeanne Socrates, who, on her third attempt, became the oldest woman to complete a solo, nonstop circumnavigation, and the first woman to do so from North America. Her voyage aboard Nereida, a Najad 380, began and ended in Vancouver.
The CCA notes that the Blue Water Medal was first awarded in 1923, and is given “for a most meritorious example of seamanship, the recipient to be selected from among the amateurs of all nations.”
French solo sailor Jean-Pierre Dick will receive the Rod Stephens Trophy for Outstanding Seamanship. Dick was 2,650 miles from the finish of the Vendée Globe race when his IMOCA 60 Virbac-Paprec3 lost its canting keel. Still, by using his water ballast he managed to sail across the finish line in fourth place.
The 2013 Far Horizons award goes to American sailors Tom and Dorothy Wadlow of Mystic, Connecticut, who have sailed 75,000 miles in the last 18 years aboard their Chuck Paine-designed Apogee 50 Joyant. Their travels have taken them up and down the East and West coasts of the North America, across the Atlantic to Northern Europe and the Med, and most recently, they’ve sailed south, bound for the Panama Canal and the West Coast of South America.
The CCA’s award ceremony is scheduled for March 7 at the New York Yacht Club in Manhattan.
