Bill Barton of Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, is the recipient of the Cruising Club of America’s 2024 Charles H. Vilas Literary Prize for “Tazzarin — North to Nunatsiavut:  A Voyage to Newfoundland, Labrador and the Inuit Lands,” published in the 2025 edition of Voyages, the CCA magazine.

The article earned top marks from the Voyages editorial committee, which annually makes the award to the CCA member who has made an outstanding contribution to Voyages, the Club magazine formerly called the Cruising Club News and edited by Vilas for 20 years.

The committee cited Barton for his well-told adventures of sailing Tazzarin, his Sabre 362 sloop, through large, drifting ice and turbulent weather to the northern reaches of humankind. Also noted was his penetration into the culture and history of the Inuit people today. The editors were particularly enchanted by Barton’s elegant description of the significant historical events from 1,000 years ago — at the place where Lief Erikson “… met up with the precursors of the Inuit. The Thule people were the tail end of the eastward migration of humankind that began 150,000 years ago in Africa. …  (this meeting) defines us as one people inhabiting one planet — one people sharing a singular blue marble and connected by the oceans we sail.”

Bill Barton, a CCA member since 1985, was Chairman of the Centennial Newport Bermuda Race in 2006. Tazzarin’s home port is Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts.

To learn more, read Bill Barton’s “Tazzarin — North to Nunatsiavut” in Voyages.