RCC Open Awards

Founded and endowed by Mr Meredith Fitzwalker Wren in 1949 for an act or acts of outstanding seamanship. It is awarded to yachtsmen or women of any nationality by a Judge or Judges appointed by the Committee of the Royal Cruising Club for the purpose.

• About last years Winner

  The Medal for Seamanship was awarded to Trevor Robertson for his voyage single-handed in Iron Bark, a 35ft Wylo steel gaff cutter, crossing all climactic zones in his 16,270 miles from New Zealand to Bantry Bay. He also received the Irish Cruising Club Decanter and (as the log judge commented) his remark “to sail past Cape Horn without a diversion to Antarctica would show a lack of enterprise” deserves wider promulgation. It is well illustrated too, with one of his pictures winning the Giovanni Cristofori photographic competition.

Previous Prizewinners

This medal is awarded in memory of Bill Tilman, an RCC member who delighted in combining cruising in high latitudes with mountaineering. It is awarded by the Committee of the Royal Cruising Club for an outstanding voyage in Arctic or Antarctic waters or in other remote places in high latitudes. The Committee takes into account objectives and achievements of exploration and of mountaineering.

• About last years Winner

  The Tilman Medal for an outstanding voyage to remote places in high latitudes taking into account exploration and mountaineering went to another RCC member, Mike Jaques, who also won the Club’s prestigious Challenge Cup for the account of his voyage in the 50’ Umiak taking him to the East Coast of Greenland into the huge Scoresby Sound, Liverpool Land and further up the ice-bound coast to King Oscar’s Sound. The expedition was carefully planned afloat and ashore, including rehearsing dinghy operations, ice axe arrest, crevasse rescue and rifle shooting in case of polar bears. With a great deal of climbing, skiing and snow-shoeing they achieved a tally of 16 peaks that are believed to be previously unclimbed.

Previous Prizewinners

This medal was founded in memory of Jocelyn Swann and can be awarded by the Committee of the Royal Cruising Club to any person, club, corporate body or company who, in the opinion of the Committee, has rendered outstanding services to yacht cruising.

• About last years Winner

  There are many challenges in cruising in Russian waters, not least the minefield of bureaucracy. Vladimir Ivankiv based in St Petersburg has proved to be indispensable to those sailing there, often acting as an agent, in the Baltic, on trips from the White Sea to the Black Sea and in Russia, either at sea or inland. He is dedicated to helping cruising folk navigate in this part of the world and he has provided invaluable information to the RCC Pilotage Foundation ‘The Baltic Sea and approaches’. It is for this that he is awarded the Club’s Services to Cruising Medal.

Previous Prizewinners