ago, its members agreed that it would be fitting to honour examples of heroism at sea which might otherwise go unrecognised.

The Blue Water Medal was established and since 1923 has been awarded annually to "record and reward examples of mertitorious seamanship and adventure upton the sea displayed by amateur sailors of all nationalities.'' The 1997 winner was Peter Gross of Great Britain.

On Christmas Day 1996, Gross was sailing in the Vendee Globe Single-handed Round the World Race in Aqua Quorum , a 50-foot sloop. His position was several hundred miles southwest of Australia, sailing in Force Ten winds, when he received a radio report that a fellow competitor, Ralph Dinelli of France, was in distress, 160 miles behind and upwind of him.

Gross turned back and carried out a search pattern in heavy seas for 20 hours before finding Dinelli, clinging to a life raft dropped by a Royal Australian Air Force search plane. Gross hoisted Dinelli, suffering from severe hypothermia, aboard then sailed 1,800 miles to Tasmania, caring for his passenger throughout.

"The seamanship and courage showed by Gross ... was in the highest tradition of the Blue Water Medal,'' the citation for the award read. Five inches in diamater, the medal was designed by Arthur Sturgis Hildebrand, a CCA member who was lost at sea in 1924 following the Viking Trail to Iceland, Greenland and Labrador.

The award was first given to Alain J. Gerbault of France, who single-handed sailed a 34-foot cutter from Gibraltar to New York non-stop in 100 days. Other medallists include: Warren Brown of Bermuda in 1988, for a series of cruises in War Baby , including Norway, Poland, the Arctic, Panama Canal, Galapagos, Straits of Magellan, the Falklands, South Shetlands and Antarctic Pennisula.

Robert Somerset, aboard Jolie Brise , who rescued, under difficult conditions, ten crew members for the burning Adriana during the 1932 Bermuda Race.

The yachtsmen of Dunkirk for their heroic evacuation of the Allied armies from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1941. The medal was flown to England in a bomber by direct order of CCA honourary member Franklin D. Roosevelt.