The Cruising Club of America has named Leiv Poncet of the Falkland Islands, the recipient of the 2024 Blue Water Medal. This accolade was established to honor exceptional seamanship and adventure by amateur sailors. It recognizes Poncet for his many high-latitude voyages around the world that were taken without fanfare.
First granted 101 years ago, the Blue Water Medal is the CCA’s highest honor. Poncet follows in the footsteps of legendary sailors including Bernard Moitessier, Eric and Susan Hiscock, Thies Matzen and Kicki Ericson and Jean-Luc Van Den Heede. Poncet is the first to follow in the footsteps of his parents, Jerome and Sally, who earned the accolade in 1992 for their liveaboard voyage in Antarctica and publishing an instructional guide to voyaging in the extreme region.
Leiv Poncet’s solo voyages over the past 25 years included circumnavigating the Southern Ocean, voyages from the Falkland Islands to the Aleutians and high-latitude kayaking adventures. His sailing trips have been taken on a 38-foot steel sloop, Peregrine, a French Trieme boat. Throughout his career Liev has contributed to scientific research, using his boat has a base for researchers.
He was notified of his award while cruising in the South Pacific Ocean. In his reply, Leiv said, the medal is “not entirely mine. I am only doing what I know how to do, what I grew up doing.” The CCA says that Poncet’s love for voyaging embodies the essence of the Blue Water Medal.
The 1,400 member CCA is organized among 11 stations throughout North America and Bermuda and has named other 2024 award winners.
Carter Bacon of Cambridge, Mass., is the 2024 recipient of the club’s Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy for his handling of the sinking of his 50-foot K. Aage Nielsen sloop, Solution, during the return sail from the 2024 Newport Bermuda Race. The award goes to a sailor “for an act of seamanship which significantly contributes to the safety of a yacht or one or more individuals at sea.”
In what had to have been a chaotic situation, Bacon was recognized for putting the safety of his crew first. He carefully collaborated with the U.S. Coast Guard to get his crew to safety as Solution sunk 200 miles off Cape Cod.
CCA’s Young Voyager Award for 2024 went to Cole Brauer, who made history at the age of 29 by becoming the first American woman to sail solo around the world nonstop. Her journey of 130 days aboard the Class 40, First Light, in the Global Solo Challenge showcased her racing skills and seamanship when she finished second.
More than half of Brauer’s competition in the race couldn’t finish the race that required sailing south around Africa, to Australia and across to the Pacific Ocean to South America before returning to Spain.
The 2024 Far Horizons Award goes to Finley H. Perry, Jr., of Hopkinton, Mass. The honor is the highest for a CCA member and it recognizes the achievements of someone who has embarked on a cruise or series of voyages that demonstrate the broader objectives of the club. In 1998, Perry purchased an Aage Nielsen 46, Elskov, and sailed 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 David 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 Straight at the southwest tip of Baffin Island.
Noted technical expert Nigel Calder of Damariscotta, Maine, won the CCA Diana Russell Award for Innovation. He receives the recognition for his knowledge, research, development and production of electrical systems or yachts. Established in 2022, the award was named for a yacht designer and systems developer who, in 1994, was one of the first women to join the CCA.
Calder is known for his dedication to improving the safety, efficiency and reliability of yacht electrical systems. He has played a key 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 internationally.
The final person honored by the CCA is William E. “Bill” Cook as the recipient of the 2024 Richard S. Nye trophy. It’s given at the discretion of the governing board and goes to a member who demonstrated 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, including designing IOR yachts that 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 won the world maxi championships three years in a row and the 53-foot Whizzbang was a motorsailer that crossed the Atlantic. Cook’s sailing accomplishments include many cruises in Europe and high-latitude waters. He has also served in many positions at the CCA and has been chairman of the Mystic Seaport Museum and a founder of the Cape Cod Maritime Museum.
All the winners have been invited to receive their awards at a ceremony in New York City in March.
