Peter Gibbons-Neff Jr. of Villanova, Pennsylvania, is the recipient of the Cruising Club of America’s 2025 Charles H. Vilas Literary Prize for “4,050 Miles Alone Across the Atlantic — Reflections on the 2023 Mini Transat and the Next Mission Ahead,” published in the 2026 edition ofVoyages, the CCA magazine.
Charles H. Vilas Literary Prize
In memory of Charles H. Vilas, member for 50 years, assistant editor and editor of the Cruising Club News for 20 years, club historian for 10 years and winner of the Nye Trophy, the Governing Board established in 1991 the Charles H. Vilas Literary Prize.
A commemorative plaque is to be awarded by the Governing Board to a member who makes an outstanding contribution to Voyages (formerly the Cruising Club News) in the form of an article or articles, photographs or chronicle. The prize may be awarded as often as annually, but need not be made each year.
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.
Anne Kolker, of New York City, is the winner of the Cruising Club of America’s 2023 Charles H. Vilas Literary Prize for her article, XX Sailors, appearing in Voyages magazine.
Charles H. Vilas Literary Prize—Max Fletcher and Lynnie Bruce
Gretchen Dieck Biemesderfer of Guilford, Connecticut, is the recipient of the Cruising Club of America's 2021 Charles H. Vilas Literary Prize for her elegant article in the CCA's Voyages magazine, "Reflections: Watercolor Paintings from Shearwater." The article describes creating marine watercolors from a sailboat.
Alan K. Forsythe has been named winner of the Cruising Club of America's 2020 Charles H. Vilas Literary Prize. This prize is awarded to a member of the Club who has made a significant contribution to the Club’s Voyages magazine.
Jim and Jean Foley of Chicago, wrote about their unusual and challenging cruise along the sparsely populated, and seldom visited, south coast of Australia. The voyage marked the completion of their second circumnavigation in 2015, a 10-year odyssey aboard Onora, the 62-foot Chuck Paine-designed, Kelly Archer-built aluminum cutter.
Awarded to Amy Jordan and Roger Block for their article “Why in the World Would You Go to the Solomon Islands?”. In the southern summer of 2012-3, Amy and Roger sailed their Pacific Seacraft 40, Shango to the seldom-visited Solomon Islands for the cyclone season. Their story tells vividly of deserted but often exposed anchorages, and the poor but generous people - farmers, fishermen, carvers and artists - who shared their homes, meals and stories.
CCA has selected Nathaniel Benjamin (Vineyard Haven, Mass.) to receive the Club’s 2016 Vilas Award for his article “A Christmas Passage to Haiti.” The award was presented at the CCA’s annual Awards Dinner at the New York Yacht Club in New York on March 3, 2017. It is given “to a member for an outstanding contribution to the CCA Voyages annual magazine.”