The Cruising Club of America has announced its 2025 awardees. The highest honor, the Blue Water Medal for “exceptional seamanship and adventure by amateur sailors,” will go to the United Kingdom’s Pete Hill for over 50 years of long-distance voyaging and a dedication to the junk rig design. Hill has built and modified several boats to this set up, proving the seaworthiness of simplicity and inspiring a community of yachting minimalists along the way.
Throughout his sailing career, Hill has focused on boats that by today’s standards are rather small for ocean-crossing—under 40 feet—but his adventures have crisscrossed the globe, including Arctic Norway to the Falkland Islands, Cape Town, Cape Horn, South Georgia, the southern Indian Ocean to Tasmania, and beyond.
Hill, who was notified of the honor while sailing the south Pacific said, “I am blown away by this. This is such an honor.”
The Blue Water Medal has been awarded for 102 years, and other recipients include Bill Tilman, Bernard Moitessier, Eric and Susan Hiscock, and Sir Robin Knox-Johnston.
Other recipients of this year’s CCA Awards include Tamara Klink (Young Voyager Award); Philip “Greg” Velez (Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy); Peter Willauer (Diana Russell Award); Christopher and Molly Barnes (Far Horizons Award); and Doug and Dale Bruce (Richard S. Nye Trophy).
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