Advertisement
The Cruising Club of America has named Randall Reeves as winner of its highest honor for his first-of-its-kind circumnavigation.
Photo: Vincent Moeyersoms
Randall Reeves of Oakland, California, earned the 2020 Blue Water Medal by the Cruising Club of America (CCA) for sailing his 45-foot aluminum cutter, Moli, alone around Antarctica and then through the Northwest Passage in a single season — departing and arriving from San Francisco.
Reeves, 57, is the first person to imagine and accomplish the 39,000-nautical-mile voyage, which creates a "Figure 8" track around the world, keeping the Americas to port and Antarctica to starboard.
Illustration: Randall Reeves
Reeves was bitten by the offshore sailing bug as a teenager, voyaging with his father and later acquiring his own boats and sailing much of the Pacific Ocean and through the Northwest Passage. He bought Moli, a proven high-latitudes vessel whose owner, Anthony "Tony" Gooch, had sailed her around the world, singlehanded, nonstop, and also received the CCA's Blue Water Medal (2003).
Even aboard a boat with Moli's pedigree, accomplishing the route Reeves had mapped out required determination and perseverance. In 2017, during a first attempt, the South Pacific seas damaged Reeves' autopilot and then his windvane, requiring a repairs stop. He continued around Antarctica, trying to keep up with the seasons, when a South Indian Ocean storm caused multiple knockdowns. Though there was less wind than in the Pacific, Reeves described the seas as "tremendous, tall, steep, and breaking continuously for 100 and 200 feet." Moli was slammed down off a wave, shattering a pilothouse window and drowning all electronics. Reeves was able to stem the flooding, cover the window, and navigate another month to Tasmania for temporary repairs. With his "figure 8" delayed, not abandoned, he sailed nonstop back to San Francisco.
After only three months of refit and repairs, Reeves was off on his second attempt in September 2018, even better prepared. With new storm covers attached over windows, new welded railing, new electronics, and vast recent experience under his belt, around the continents and around the world he sailed.
Reeves kept a running blog of his journey at figure8voyage.com and CNN produced a video report on Reeves' ongoing attempt in 2019.
Keeping the Americas to port and Antarctica to starboard, passing beneath Cape Horn twice before poking Moli north through the Arctic ice, Reeves sailed the great loops for 301 days.
On October 19, 2019, 385 days after setting out, Reeves sailed Moli under the Golden Gate Bridge to complete the first singlehanded "figure 8" around Antarctica and the Americas. cruisingclub.org