ALL AT SEA
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The Ocean Cruising Club (OCC), the UK-headquartered ‘home port’ for global adventure sailing for nearly 70 years, gave as good as it got in 2020. That is, the Club presented its annual awards to members in December and in January received the Medal for Services to Cruising award from the Royal Cruising Club (RCC). All awards are especially remarkable due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The OCC Seamanship Award for 2020 went to member Garry Crothers of Northern Ireland. Crothers, who lost an arm in a motorcycle accident, found himself as a solo one-armed sailor in St Martin when the pandemic struck. He needed to get back to Northern Ireland for his daughter’s wedding in September. With no flights and no possible crew, he sailed solo non-stop directly to Derry in 37 days. Along the way, OCC members checked in with him daily.
Royal Club Awards its Medal for Services to the Ocean Cruising Club
11th January 2021
Ireland s Daria (right) and Alex Blackwell of the Ocean Cruising Club
Royal Cruising Club (RCC) Awards the Medal for Services to Cruising – 2020 to the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC).
The Royal Cruising Club (RCC) announced at the Awards Evening on 07 January, held on Zoom, that the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) has been awarded the Medal for Services to Cruising. The Medal for Services to Cruising was founded in memory of Jocelyn Swann for rendering outstanding services to yacht cruising.
The Ocean Cruising Club provided exceptional services to cruising yachtsmen during the COVID 19 pandemic. There was early recognition of the mayhem caused by the pandemic to the cruising community around the world. Many cruising yachtsmen found themselves and their yachts trapped in places they did not expect to be, at the wrong time of the year, and with tropical storms threatening for which they were not insur