The Ocean Cruising Club (The OCC) has announced the recipients of the OCC Awards for 2014. Each year the OCC recognizes the achievements of ordinary individuals doing extraordinary things on the world’s oceans and brings those achievements to the attention of the sailing community at large. The OCC Awards Sub-Committee, composed of accomplished members from around the world, made the announcement at the Club’s annual January dinner.
The recipient of the club’s premier award for members, The Barton Cup, is OCC Member the Reverend Bob Shepton. Having won this award previously in 1995, Bob is now recognized for his recent Northwest Passage and Greenland sailing/climbing expeditions. His writing regularly appears in sailing and climbing magazines worldwide and his book, Addicted to Adventure: Between rocks and cold places, released in 2014 has received critical acclaim.
The OCC Award of Merit, an award that recognizes both members and non-members, goes to Peter Semotiuk(non-member) for his exceptional radio service to sailors transiting the NW Passage. Now retired, Peter was dubbed the “Northwest Passage’s own night watchman”. As a private contractor for the North Warning System, for more than twenty years he has spent the evenings beside his radio broadcasting weather and ice conditions to sailors attempting the Passage.
“It is testament to the global nature of the OCC that members from all over the world submitted a record number of high quality nominations for this year’s Awards, representing the sailing community in all of the world’s oceans. This is truly fitting in this 60th Anniversary Year of the OCC’s founding.” said Commodore John Franklin.
“Judging the candidates this year involved a great deal of reading, research and analysis,” added Jenny Franklin, Chairman of the Awards Subcommittee. “As one judge put it, ‘it has been an inspiration to me personally to read of the amazing exploits of the members of this Club’. We had a stellar team of 11 members representing 6 countries on the Awards selection panel and are immensely grateful for their time and commitment to this task.”
The Awards will be formally presented to the winners at the Annual Awards Dinner aboard the HQS Wellington in London on the 28th of March. For a full list of award winners and to see their stories visit www.oceancruisingclub.org.
