Behan and Jamie Gifford, of Bainbridge Island, Washington, are the recipients of the Cruising Club of America’s 2025 Royal Cruising Club Trophy for their six-month cruise through Japan in the summer of 2025. Aboard Totem, their Stevens 47, the Giffords entered Japan in Okinawa and worked their way north up the less-traveled west coast, eventually making their way to Sapporo, Hokkaido, the most northern of the four main Japanese islands.
Gifted to the CCA by the Royal Cruising Club, the trophy is awarded to a CCA member and skipper who has undertaken “the most interesting cruise of singular merit and moderate duration,” as judged by the Awards Committee and editors of the CCA’s Voyages magazine. It has been awarded annually since 1998.
“Six Months in Japan,” the Giffords’ account of their 1,500-mile sea and cultural adventure, is documented in the 2026 issue of Voyages, the CCA magazine.
The Giffords have cruised full time since 2008. Living aboard Totem while raising three children, they have visited more than 50 countries under sail, including a circumnavigation. Now empty-nest cruisers, the couple offers coaching and mentoring services to help others realize their own wind-driven cruising dreams. CCA members of the Pacific Northwest station since 2018 and recipients of the Club’s Circumnavigation Award for an east-to-west circumnavigation aboard Totem from 2010-2018, they are also authors of “Lessons from Cruising,” which was published in the 2020 issue of Voyages.
