The Cruising Club of America has unveiled its 2025 awards, with the Blue Water Medal, the organisation's highest honour, going to British sailor Pete Hill. Now in its 102nd year, the medal recognises exceptional seamanship and adventurous ocean voyaging by amateur sailors.
*Blue Water Medal*
At 75, Hill has spent more than five decades completing serious ocean passages aboard modest, deliberately simple yachts. His defining characteristic as a sailor is a commitment to junk rigs and uncluttered vessels, a philosophy that has quietly shaped the thinking of generations of offshore sailors who prioritise time at sea over technical sophistication.
Hill's early voyaging life was spent with his first wife, Annie Hill. Together they built and sailed Badger, a 34 foot double-ended plywood dory designed by Jay Benford and rigged as a two-masted junk schooner. Aboard Badger, the pair ranged widely, reaching Greenland, Arctic Norway, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and beyond. Those voyages would later form the basis for Annie Hill's first two books and her influential writing on the modern junk rig, work that played a significant part in the rig's renewed appeal among offshore sailors.
*A brief digression on Annie Hill*
Pete and Annie Hill divorced in 2001. Annie Hill subsequently remarried sailor Trevor Robertson and continued voyaging on her own terms. She eventually moved to New Zealand, where she continues, as last reported, to live aboard her junk-rigged plywood yacht FanShi.
In 2021, Boating New Zealand contributor Matt Vance wrote The Beauty of Junk, an article examining how Annie Hill's book Voyaging on a Small Income quietly challenges consumer-driven assumptions about cruising life. The piece argues that simplicity enables freedom rather than constraint, tracing that argument through the vessels that shaped her voyaging years, from Badger to FanShi. Rather than treating junk rigs as curiosities, Vance presents them as practical, humane solutions for sustained life at sea. The article is well worth seeking out, not least for the glimpse it offers of FanShi.
Voyaging on a Small Income remains a widely referenced study of long-term self-sufficiency afloat, frequently consulted by sailors seeking alternatives to high-cost offshore cruising.
*Back to Pete Hill*
After the divorce, Pete Hill designed and built China Moon, a 38 foot junk-rigged catamaran, and spent years sailing alone in the high southern latitudes, including Cape Horn, the South Shetland Islands, South Georgia, and Tristan da Cunha. A solo delivery of China Moon from Baltimore to Brazil in 41 days was followed by a passage of nearly 10,000 nautical miles to Tasmania via the southern Indian Ocean, cementing his reputation for endurance and steadiness under pressure.
Further projects followed. Hill converted a Freedom 33 to junk rig and spent considerable time cruising Brazil with his second wife, Carly, also contributing a detailed cruising guide to that country for the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation. He then built Oryx, a custom catamaran with a mast stepped in each hull, and sailed her from England to Brazil and onward across the notoriously difficult South Atlantic to Cape Town.
His years at sea have not been without profound grief. In 2015, Carly was lost overboard off the South African coast. In the period that followed, Hill returned to solo sailing, crossing the Indian Ocean alone to Mauritius and then Australia.
During the pandemic, Hill and his partner Linda Crew Gee built Kokachin, a junk-rigged schooner. Together they sailed her across the North Atlantic to the Caribbean, north to Nova Scotia, and around Newfoundland. When China Moon unexpectedly came up for sale, Hill bought her back, refitted the boat in Tasmania, and in 2025 he and Linda departed for New Zealand. The crossing was testing. A violent Tasman Sea storm caused significant damage and forced six days and nights of continuous hand steering before conditions eased. They are now cruising in the Pacific.
News of the Blue Water Medal reached Hill while he was at sea in New Caledonia. "I am blown away by this," he said. "This is such an honour."
*Other awards*
Five further awards were announced alongside Hill's recognition, spanning seamanship, exploration, education, and service to the sailing community.
*Young Voyager Award*
The 2025 Young Voyager Award goes to Tamara Klink, 28, of Brazil. Klink completed her first solo Atlantic crossing at 22, sailing a 26 foot yacht from Norway to Brazil. In 2023 she sailed from France to Greenland and overwintered alone in the Arctic ice, becoming the first woman to do so. During that same voyage she also became the first Latin American sailor to complete a solo Northwest Passage transit.
*Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy*
The Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy is awarded to Philip Greg Velez of Michigan, in recognition of the rescue of a sailor lost overboard during the 101st Bayview Mackinac Race. After nearly an hour searching in heavy conditions, Velez and his crew brought the man safely back aboard, an outcome the CCA described as exemplary seamanship under pressure.
*Diana Russell Award*
The Diana Russell Award is presented posthumously to Peter Willauer, a founding figure behind the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School and a pioneer of experiential education. Willauer, who passed away in November 2025 aged 90, was recognised for decades of work connecting sailing, leadership, and environmental understanding.
*Far Horizons Award*
The Far Horizons Award is shared by Christopher and Molly Barnes, who completed a three-year, 36,000 nautical mile family voyage with their two young sons, taking in Cape Horn, South Georgia, Arctic Norway, and the Bay of Biscay.
*Richard S. Nye Trophy*
The Richard S. Nye Trophy goes to Doug and Dale Bruce, recognised for more than a decade of outstanding service to the Club, including substantial contributions to cruising guides, publications, and communications.
All 2025 award recipients will be formally honoured at a ceremony in New York City in early March.
