The Cruising Club of America, CCA, has just announced that Pete Hill is the 2025 recipient of the prestigious Blue Water Medal, previously awarded to such luminaries as Bill Tilman, Bernard Moitessier, Robin Knox Johnston, the Hiscocks, etc. Here is the transcript from the CCA announcing the award:
Pete Hill, of the United Kingdom, is the recipient of the 2025 Blue Water Medal of the Cruising Club of America (CCA). This prestigious award, established to honor exceptional seamanship and adventure by amateur sailors, recognizes Hill for his more than 50 years of long-distance voyaging in the world’s oceans. His dedication to building or modifying his yachts to the simple junk rig and proving their seaworthiness has been inspirational to a yachting community of minimalists who find it most important to be at sea or with a community of like-minded sailors.
With this honor—the highest CCA award, first granted 102 years ago—Hill, 75, follows in the wake of other remarkable sailors including Bill Tilman, Bernard Moitessier, Eric and Susan Hiscock, and Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. His independent philosophy of design and construction has allowed him to sail the same seas as these icons of yachting without the burden of sophisticated and expensive systems.
Notified of the award while cruising in New Caledonia in the South Pacific Ocean, in emotional tones, Hill expressed profound gratitude. “I am blown away by this,” he said, adding “this is such an honor.”
Hill has accomplished remarkable voyages on a variety of boats using the junk rig. Starting out in a self-built 27-foot Wharram catamaran, he and his first wife, Annie (who received the 2009 Blue Water Medal with Trevor Robertson), completed an eventful North Atlantic Ocean circuit in 1975. They then built Badger, a 34-foot plywood dory, in which they explored the North and South Atlantic from Greenland and arctic Norway to the Falkland Islands, South Orkney Islands, South Georgia and Gough Island, then back north to Baffin Island with a return south to Cape Town and many ports between.
Hill then built a 38-foot, junk-rigged catamaran to his own design, China Moon. He and Annie went their separate ways, and for five years he cruised the high latitudes of the South Atlantic Ocean, including Cape Horn and a solo cruise of the South Shetland Islands, South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha.
China Moon was sold; Hill completed the delivery solo from Baltimore, Maryland, to Brazil in 41 days. With the new owner, he sailed China Moon from Brazil via the southern Indian Ocean to Tasmania, almost 10,000 nautical miles, in 73 days. Hill also raced; he soloed in the 2006 Jester Challenge from Plymouth, England, to Newport, Rhode Island, in a Kingfisher 22, finishing second but last.
The next project was converting a Freedom 33 to a junk rig. With his second wife, Carly, he cruised extensively in Brazil over several years while writing a multi-part cruising guide to Brazil for the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation.
In between visits to Brazil, he returned to England and built Oryx, a catamaran, which like his other catamarans, contained a mast in each hull. Following the voyage south to Brazil, Oryx then crossed the stormy South Atlantic to Cape Town. Hill’s voyages were not without tragedy. After many years, thousands of miles at sea, and several ocean crossings together, Carly was lost overboard off the coast of South Africa in 2015. Hill’s response to tragedy was spending time at sea alone. He subsequently sailed singlehanded across the Indian Ocean to Mauritius and Australia.
After further globe-girdling adventures aboard Oryx, Hill sold her and returned to England. He used his time during the pandemic to build Kokachin, a junk style schooner, with his new partner, Linda Crew-Gee. Kokachin’s first cruise was across the North Atlantic to the Caribbean and then north to Nova Scotia and a circumnavigation of Newfoundland.
Unexpectedly, China Moon came up for sale and Hill decided to buy her back. Storing Kokachin back in England, he and Linda flew to Tasmania, and after a four-month refit, set off toward New Zealand in 2025. They were caught in a violent storm in the Tasman Sea, during which a wave hit and damaged the boat, forcing the couple to hand steer for six days and nights in challenging conditions. They are now cruising in the Pacific.
PS: My article describing Pete and Linda's survival storm in the Tasman Sea aboard China Moon will be published in the May edition of Practical Boat Owner.