Winners named for 2024 CCA Awards

The Cruising Club of America (CCA) has revealed the honorees of its annual awards by naming Leiv Poncet as the 2024 Blue Water Medal winner along with five other award winners for their adventurous use of the seas highlights several exceptional records of achievement.

Blue Water Medal – Leiv Poncet
This prestigious award, established to honor exceptional seamanship and adventure by amateur sailors, recognizes Leiv Poncet for his 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, first granted 101 years ago—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.

Yet, he is the first winner of the Blue Water Medal whose parents won it previously. Jerome and Sally Poncet earned the same award in 1992 for their pioneering liveaboard voyaging in Antarctica and their publication of a handbook to 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.

He was notified of his award while cruising the South Pacific Ocean, two weeks away from the Marquesas. In his grateful reply, he said that he felt the Blue Water Medal “is not entirely mine. I am only doing what I know how to do, what I grew up doing.”

The CCA acknowledges that Poncet’s love for voyaging, driven by personal passion rather than the pursuit of recognition, truly embodies the essence of the Blue Water Medal.

Additional honorees:
• Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy – Carter Bacon
• Young Voyager Award – Cole Brauer
• Far Horizons Award – Finley H. Perry Jr.
• Diana Russell Award – Nigel Calder
• Richard S. Nye Trophy – William Cook

All award winners have been invited to receive their awards at a special ceremony in New York City in early March 2025.

Award details: https://cruisingclub.org/awards

Source: CCA