Our 2024 Blue Water Medal is awarded to Leiv Poncet. This award, and five others, highlight exceptional records of achievement. Extraordinary high-latitude cruising voyages are a common thread among these sailors who have completed circumnavigations and other rigorous bluewater passages, provided technical and design innovation for others, and contributed throughout the sailing community.
Our 2024 Blue Water Medal is awarded to Leiv Poncet. This award, and five others, highlight exceptional records of achievement. Extraordinary high-latitude cruising voyages are a common thread among these sailors who have completed circumnavigations and other rigorous bluewater passages, provided technical and design innovation for others, and contributed throughout the sailing community.
Leiv Poncet: Blue Water Medal
The CCA has named Leiv Poncet of the Falkland Islands as recipient of the 2024 Blue Water Medal. This award, established in 1923 to honor exceptional seamanship and adventure by amateur sailors of all nations, recognizes Poncet for numerous intrepid high-latitude voyages around the world. His dedication to exploring the world’s most remote and challenging locations without fanfare exemplifies the spirit of this award.
With this honor—the highest CCA award—Poncet follows in the wake of other remarkable sailors including Bernard Moitessier, Eric and Susan Hiscock, Thies Matzen and Kicki Ericson, and Jean-Luc Van Den Heede. Poncet stands out as the first winner of the Blue Water Medal whose parents won it previously; Jerome and Sally Poncet earned the award in 1992 for their pioneering liveaboard voyaging in Antarctica and their publication of a handbook of voyaging in the region.
Poncet’s remarkable solo voyages over the past 25 years include his circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean, voyages from the Falkland Islands to the Aleutian Islands, and remarkable, first-ever, high-latitude sea-kayaking trips. His sailing achievements are further highlighted by his use of the 38-foot steel sloop, Peregrine, a French Trireme model, which has taken him to places like South Georgia and beyond. Throughout his sailing career, Poncet has not only demonstrated exceptional seamanship but also contributed to scientific research by using Peregrine as a base for ornithologists and other scientists.
Carter Bacon: Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy
Carter Bacon of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the 2024 recipient of the Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy for his meritorious handling of the sinking of his classic 50-foot K. Aage Nielsen sloop Solution during the return sail after the 2024 Newport Bermuda Race. The CCA annually awards the Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy to a sailor “for an act of seamanship which significantly contributes to the safety of a yacht, or one or more individuals at sea.”
Abandoning one’s 60-year-old yacht after 24 years and numerous voyages, including several races to Bermuda and a transatlantic crossing, is a difficult decision to make—comparable to losing a family member. Bacon put his crew’s safety first and foremost, which he is quick to say was an easy decision for him. For what is all too often a dangerous and chaotic event, in a carefully orchestrated manner and with expert support from the U.S. Coast Guard, Bacon and his crew abandoned Solution 200 miles off Cape Cod, bringing everyone home safely.
Cole Brauer: Young Voyager Award
The CCA is honored to announce that Cole Brauer is the recipient of the prestigious 2024 Young Voyager Award. This award recognizes a young sailor who has made one or more exceptional voyages, demonstrating exceptional skills and courage.
Cole Brauer, a 30-year-old sailor who lives in Newport, Rhode Island, made history at the age of 29 by becoming the first American woman to sail around the world, non-stop, singlehanded. Her remarkable journey of 130 days aboard the Class 40 First Light in the Global Solo Challenge not only showcased her racing skills and seamanship but also earned her a second-place finish in the race.
More than half of Brauer’s competitors were unable to finish the race, which required sailing south around Africa, over to Australia, and across the Pacific Ocean to South America before returning north to Spain. Challenges she faced included injuring her rib after being thrown around by a massive wave, becoming severely dehydrated, and handling many boat repairs—all while informing and entertaining a social media audience that soared to nearly half a million.
Finley Perry: Far Horizons Award
The CCA is proud to announce that Finley H. Perry Jr. of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, has been awarded the Far Horizons Award for 2024. The Club’s premier sailing honor for a member, this award recognizes the sailing achievements of someone who has embarked on a cruise or series of cruises that demonstrate the broader objectives of the Club, including the adventurous use of the sea.
After a couple decades of cruising from Maine to Newfoundland in his 1949 Hinckley Sou’wester 34, Perry purchased an Aage Nielsen 46 named Elskov in 1998 and sailed her from Maine to Denmark, and up the coast of Norway to Tromsø. He sailed to Spitzbergen in 2003, reaching 80 degrees north latitude, then crossed to Iceland, southern Greenland, and Labrador.
In 2006, Perry cruised the west coast of Greenland, past Disko Bay to Uummannaq Fjord at 71 north latitude, then crossed Davis Strait and explored uncharted Hoare Bay on the Cumberland Peninsula of east Baffin Island. Another notable voyage, in 2013, covered 3,000 miles from Baddeck, Nova Scotia, into Hudson Strait as far as Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset) at the southwest tip of Baffin Island. The area had been explored, and places named, by Martin Frobisher, John Davis, Henry Hudson, and a few others searching for a northwest passage to Asia in the late 1500s and early 1600s, but has been little visited in the years since.
Nigel Calder: Diana Russell Award
The CCA has named Nigel Calder of Damariscotta, Maine, as this year’s winner of the Diana Russell Award for Innovation. Calder receives this recognition for his extensive knowledge, research, development, and production of advanced electrical systems for yachts.
The Diana Russell Award for innovation was established in 2022 and named for a yacht designer and yacht systems developer who was one of the first women to join the CCA. The award recognizes a CCA member for innovation in sailing design, methodology, education, training, safety, and the adventurous use and enjoyment of the sea. Calder’s achievements exemplify the spirit of this award, and the CCA is honored to acknowledge his contributions.
Calder is renowned in the marine industry for his pioneering work and dedication to improving the safety, efficiency, and reliability of yacht electrical systems. He has played a pivotal role in the development of standards for boat electrical and propulsion systems for the American Boat and Yacht Council in the United States and for similar organizations and authorities in Europe.
William Cook: Richard S. Nye Trophy
The CCA has selected William E. “Bill” Cook as the recipient of the 2024 Richard S. Nye Trophy. Given at the discretion of the governing board, the Nye Trophy is awarded for bringing distinction to the Club by meritorious service, outstanding seamanship, outstanding performance in cruising and racing, international yachting statesmanship, or any combination of these accomplishments.
Cook has had a distinguished career in yacht design. His IOR designs have won multiple championships and offshore regattas. His design of the New York 36 resulted in a class of more than 60 boats. Matador 2 was a novel design that won the world maxi championships three years in a row. The 53-foot Whizzbang was a different sort of champion, a pure cruiser in the form of a versatile motorsailer that crossed the Atlantic and back.
Cook’s own sailing accomplishments include multiple cruises in Europe and high-latitude waters. Within the CCA, he has served with distinction as Rear Commodore of the Boston Station and for extended terms as chairman of the membership and awards committees. He has also served as chairman of Mystic Seaport Museum and is a founder of the Cape Cod Maritime Museum.
All award winners have been invited to receive their awards at a special ceremony in New York City in early March.
