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OCC and CCA Award Winners

"My friends, Thies Matzen and Kicki Ericson, have just won the Cruising Club of America Blue Water Medal and the Ocean Cruising Club Award of Merit, becoming only the second sailors to win both honors in the same year," writes Beth Leonard, who, with partner Evans Starzinger, has also been the recipient of a number of high-profile cruising awards for voyages aboard their Shannon 37 Silk and their 47-ft Van De Stadt Hawk. "And they did it on the iconic, 30-ft, wooden boat Wanderer III that carried the Hiscocks around the world on their first two circumnavigations. This is the second Blue Water Medal for Wanderer III — only one other boat has had that honor in the more than 88-year history of the award."

Kicki Ericson and Thies Matzen have sailed 135,000 nautical miles over the past 23 years aboard Eric and Susan Hiscock’s old Wanderer III.

Wanderer III
©2012 Latitude 38 Media, LLC

Thies and Kicki really are an extraordinary cruising couple. Having met in the BVIs in ’89, the pair have since sailed Wanderer III around the world twice, spending a lot of time in the high southern latitudes, including two years (winters too!) in South Georgia. The fact that the Laurent Giles-designed classic is not only still floating, but has now completed four circuits of the globe and is still in practically the same condition as when she was launched in ’52, is a testament to the couple’s skill and dedication to a life of self-reliance.

Thies and Kicki are currently on their way to Buenos Aires for a refit, but will make time to pop over to the New York YC on March 2 to collect their Blue Water Medal, and then to England on March 30 for the OCC award ceremony. We’d love to direct you to their blog, but as they’ve kept Wanderer III nearly as low-tech as the Hiscocks did, you’ll only find their stories in back issues of Cruising World, Wooden Boat, and so on.

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