Past Seven Seas Award Recipients

2011 - Andy (awarded posthumously) and Pam Wall and their children, Kandarik

The Seven Seas Award signifies the highest international recognition to a cruising sailor whose experiences on the sea demonstrate a deep commitment to good seamanship and an understanding of his ship and environment.

Andy had sailed from Australia when he was young, stopping for a couple of months in Patagonia and exploring the many channels and bays before rounding Cape Horn. Later he and Pam had sailed around the world with their little kids on the 39 foot sloop that Andy and Pam built.

It was upon the return to Florida that Pam began her career with West Marine in Fort Lauderdale.  Here she became the “go to” person for anything to do with sailing, cruising, outfitting, and presenting lectures.  There are so many people that have been helped by Pam.  Her knowledge of sailing and foreign countries, her passion for the right equipment while outfitting yachts, and her wonderful enthusiasm for helping others gain knowledge and confidence is what Pam has for the sailing community not only in South Florida but in every harbor around the world!

Pam goes around the country giving lectures at boat shows, schools, hospitals, yacht clubs, and other organizations.  She talks about sailing, about responsibility, about empowerment, and the necessity of having dreams to work towards.  Pam Wall has become a byword in the community for smiles, laughter, and the joy of passing on information and encouragement to so many people.

2009 - Beth Leonard and Evans Starzinger, Hawk

Beth and Evans are among the leading blue water cruising sailors today. They circumnavigated west-about by way of the Torres Strait and Cape of Good Hope aboard their first boat Silk, a Shannon 37 ketch, from 1992-95. They then spent four years ashore filling the cruising kitty while building their next boat Hawk, a 47’ Van de Stadt Samoa aluminum sloop. They then completed a second east-about high-latitude circumnavigation aboard Hawk sailing more than 75,000 nm in ten years including a 9,000 nm non-stop passage through the Southern Ocean. Their voyage took them from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn and under all five of the mariner’s Great Southern Capes. Most recently they wintered in the Beagle Channel just north of Cape Horn and then sailed to the Falklands, South Georgia, St. Helena and up through the Caribbean to the Chesapeake. They have now sailed well over 100,000 miles.

In addition to the Seven Seas Award, Beth and Evans have won other noteworthy awards for their cruising. These include:

The 2003 Vasey Vase by the Ocean Cruising club for 9000 miles/59 day non-stop passage in the southern ocean and 2009 Vasey Vase for 2008 cruise to South Georgia

The Far Horizons Medal by the Cruising club of America for their voyages.

Beth's book "Blue Horizons" has won the Outdoor Literature category of the 2007 National Outdoor Book Awards. It's the first time a sailing book has won the Literature prize. The announcement is on the NOBA website.

Nominated by Nancy Zapf, Halekai, Marcie and David Lynn, Nine of Cups and Suzanne Giesemann, Liberty.

2008 - Noël Marshall, Sadko II

Noël, an accomplished circumnavigator, is a member of the Royal Cruising Club, Ocean Cruising Club and SSCA.

After an illustrious 36-year career in the English Diplomatic Service, where he served in Pakistan, Moscow and Strasburg, and 15 years of ocean racing, Noël Marshall retired in 1993 and began cruising aboard his first boat, Sadko, a Hallberg-Rassy 38. In 1997 he was awarded the Royal Cruising Club Challenge Cup for his four-year circumnavigation, which included visits to Japan and the Russian Far East.

The second Sadko, a custom 42 foot aluminum cutter designed by Mike Pocock, was launched in 2002 and made her maiden cruise to the White Sea to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the “discovery” of Russia by Sir Richard Chancellor in 1553. In 2004 Noël crossed the Atlantic where he then cruised up the North American coast and as far as Disko Island in Greenland before returning to the Chesapeake. Over the following two years he continued via the Bahamas to Panama, the Galapagos Islands, single-handed to southern Chile and, with a relay of crews, through the Chilean channels to Cape Horn, and up to Buenos Aires. This group of cruises was awarded three more trophies by the RCC.

For the 2006-2007 southern season, Noël returned single-handed to the Beagle Channel and then, with a full crew, spent six weeks visiting the Antarctic Peninsula. They reached Detaille island, about 20 miles south of the Antarctic Circle, and concluded with a landing on Elephant Island, taking with them a bronze plaque honoring the members of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition who survived there in 1916. One of the survivors, James Wordie, had been the Master of his college when Noël was at Cambridge. This was, beyond doubt, the “cruise of a lifetime,” and one for which the Royal Cruising Club awarded Noël both the Challenge Cup for 2007 and the Goldsmith Exploration Award.

Noel was nominated by Marcie and David Lynn, Nine of Cups.

2007 - Captain Eric Forsyth

Captain Forsyth is an accomplished voyaging sailor, widely published cruising author, and frequent contributor to the Bulletin. Eric’s articles have appeared in Ocean Voyager, CCA Cruising News, Latitudes & Attitudes, and Ocean Navigator, among others.

Over an 8 year period he completed the bare hull of a Westsail 42, which was christened Fiona in 1983. He also completed Fiona’s full refit twenty years later. He was awarded the prestigious Blue Water Medal by the Cruising Club of America in 2000.

Voyages of Fiona:
Cruise to Antarctica:  2006-2007
Full Atlantic Circle, Baltic to the Falklands:  2004-2005
Circumnavigation on the Clipper Ship Route:  2002-2003
North Atlantic Circle, Arctic to the Caribbean:  2000-2001
Circling South America via Easter Is., Antarctica and South Africa:  1998-1999
Circumnavigation via Trade Wind Route: 1995-1997

In addition, Eric has completed many ocean passages between the North American coast, the Atlantic Islands., the Caribbean and Europe, on both Iona and Fiona, and also completed 6 Newport-Bermuda races. His first Transatlantic crossing was in 1964.

Eric was as a fighter pilot for the RAF before emigrating first to Canada, then to the U.S., where he had a distinguished career as a senior scientist at Brookhaven National Labs in New York. In June 2007 he received a professional award from the IEEE for his work in superconductivity.

2005 - Rod and Becky Nowlin, Mahdi

After successfully thwarting an attack by pirates 30 miles off the coast of Yemen in March, 2005, Rod and Becky began working on trying to figure out a way for yachts going through the Gulf of Aden to better protect themselves from pirates/terrorist attacks in the future. 

Quoting Rod in May of 2005, "All of the international yachting organizations and especially the yachts planning to transit this area need to start making direct requests for assistance that actually require an answer from their governments. You should have contacts with a lot of yachting organizations who have direct input to their respective governments. We need to send out a direct appeal to these organizations for their help.

Hiring mercenaries may be well beyond the financial means of most of the yachts. That is why I have been pushing to get the local forces there involved. I know that the Yemeni Coast Guard is very sympathetic to the problems the yachts are facing along that coast and they just don't have the boats and trained personnel yet to deal with the problem effectively. The Vasco De Gama Rally that is heading south now toward Indian from the Med, has quite a few boats involved. One avenue of a definitive push for help may be for them to formally request armed guards aboard for the trip to Salalah. That way someone in authority has to actually make a decision.”

Rod and Becky's efforts to make the passage through the Gulf of Aden safer have continued, unfortunately with little useful results. Their words in 2007, "You are on your own out here and you had better be prepared to stand on your own two feet."