The Cruising Club of America (CCA) has named Max Campbell, of Falmouth, UK, as the recipient of the 2023 Young Voyager Award. The award recognizes “a young sailor who has made one or more exceptional voyages.” Campbell set sail eight years ago, at age 20, on a 22-foot wooden sailboat.
The Board of Governors has established this award to recognize “a young sailor who has made one or more exceptional voyages.”
The Cruising Club of America’s Young Voyager Award for 2022 goes to Cal Currier, a high school student who didn’t have a boat or know how to sail when the year began. In January, he decided to sail across the Atlantic Ocean alone and began taking sailing lessons near his home in Palo Alto, California.
The 2021 Young Voyager award goes to a sailor whose childhood was marred by drugs and learning disabilities. Matt Rutherford spent time in a cult, rehab, juvenile detention, and eventually prison.
An adventuresome French couple are the 2020 recipients of the Cruising Club of America’s top award for younger sailors.
The Cruising Club of America presents the 2019 Young Voyager Award to Guirec Soudée in recognition of his solo voyage from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Established in 2016, the Young Voyager Award acknowledges “a young sailor who has made one or more exceptional voyages.”
TheCruising Club of America presented Ellen and Seth Leonard with its 2018 Young Voyager Award in recognition of their predominantly double-handed circumnavigation commenced at the ages of 20 and 23, respectively.
Jessica Watson (Buderim, Queensland, Australia) is among Cruising Club of America’s (CCA) 2017 award recipients selected for outstanding contributions to the sport of sailing and the history of yachting. Watson won the Young Voyager Award, which was introduced in 2017 and recognizes “a young sailor who has made one or more exceptional voyages.” In Watson’s case, she completed a southern hemisphere non-stop around the world voyage – solo and unassisted – at the age of 16.
The CCA has selected Erik de Jong (Sitka, Alaska) to receive the Club’s first Young Voyager Award for his extensive voyages made from an early age. The Board of Governors established this award to recognize “a young sailor who has made one or more exceptional voyages.” The medal will be presented at the CCA’s annual Awards Dinner in New York on March 3, 2017.