On Friday, January 21st, after 811 nautical miles of ocean racing and packed out social events, the 2019 edition of the "Pineapple Cup - Montego Bay Race" reached its conclusion with the packed out Montego Bay Yacht Club hosting the awards ceremony! Over 170 attendees were on hand for the awarding of the Governor General's Trophy, also known as the Pineapple Cup, to Lady Mariposa from the UK.
The crew of Nigel King's Ker 46 Lady Mariposa representing the Royal Ocean Racing Club, took home the Pineapple Cup and 1st in IRC Class.
This years race featured a record breaking performance by Jason Carroll's MOD 70, Argo, but the overall IRC winner was Nigel King's Ker 46, Lady Mariposa and was awarded the Pineapple Cup. The PHRF class and Felix Andre Hunter Trophy winner, Eamonn de Lisser, James Bill and Horst Baier's Farr 395, Senara.
PHRF and Felix Andre Hunter Trophy winner's crew including owners Eamonn de Lisser, James Bill and Horst Baier, Farr 395, Senara with their hard won trophies.
Horst Baier, James Bill and Eamonn Delisser's Senara Racing had an exceptional race and their take of hardware at the Awards was impressive. The team was awarded the Silver Seahorse Trophy for their win in the PHRF division, the Seagull Trophy for being the smallest boat to finish and the and the newly created Felix Hunter Andre Trophy awarded to the winning boat in the fleet with the most competitors.
Eamonn Delisser’s said of the race, “This race started out rough. We lost our windex within the first 3-4 hours don’t know how, it just came off. We beat ourselves up to Eleuthera where we knew the cold front was coming in. We never expected 40 knots that was a surprise, but we knew the wind was going to change and we had to double reef and put up storm sails, but after that it was a pleasurable sail.
This is my first win, in 8 races...so this feels great. Jamaica is home [Eamonn was born in Jamaica, but resides in Miami], it is one of the greatest races out there, it has every condition you want to do and we started doing this because of my daughter (Arielle), it [the boat] was her graduation present. I just want to thank Jim Bill and Horst Baier because without them we couldn’t do this.”
Sailors representing 14 different countries took part on this historic race. The race committee from Biscayne Bay Yacht Club pulled off two incident free heavy air stars in pretty challenging conditions. The new format of a staggered start saw the Multi’s and and the IRC boats chasing the PHRF fleet through the Bahamas in light conditions before rounding Cuba for the promised downwind run to Montego Bay.
Line Honor and Multihull Class Winner, Jason Carroll's Argo representing Larchmont Yacht Club.
Jason Carroll’s Mod 70 Argo was the first to cross the line and in so doing set a new multihull record of 2days 7 min 44sec. Beating Steve Fossets time (set last century) by 10 hours 16 min and 58sec.
Jason Carroll- “It was a really fun race, it had a lot of different things happening. The start was the best part, it was so exciting, that first 60 miles across the gulf-stream was just a handful, it was really fun it was fast, it was the biggest waves we’ve ever sailed in as a team.
This is a new adventure for us sailing the MOD 70 so we’re all kinda working up through all of the different regattas we can do over the course of the year to practice and see what we ultimately want to do with it and frankly I think that the Pineapple Cup, the Caribbean 600 are both great training regattas for the Transpac, which we want to do in July.
Overall we are pretty thrilled, I have to say we kept setting challenges for ourselves along the way and we thought there was a chance we could go sub 2 days and we missed it by 7 minutes, so aside from that it was exhilarating to cross the line and head to the dock!”
With the support of the Montego Bay Yacht Club, the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club and the Storm Trysail Club the Pineapple Cup will return in 2021. We hope to see you there.
David and Peter Askew's Volvo 70, Wizard, representing NYYC took monohull line honors and 2nd IRC.
Results:
Winner Of The Largest Fleet:
FELIX HUNTER-ANDRE PERPETUAL TROPHY – Senara
First Monohull To Finish:
The Silver Rose Bowl Perpetual Trophy – Wizard
Smallest Boat To Finish:
Seagull Trophy – Senara
Division PHRF:
1st Silver Seahorse Perpetual Trophy – Senara
2nd – Renegade
3rd – Sin Duda!
Division Multihull:
Arawak Perpetual Trophy: Winner of Multihull Class - Argo
(Multihull Record Breaking Winner)
Division IRC:
1st – Lady Mariposa
2nd – Wizard
3rd – Conviction
Navigators Trophy, First Overall Corrected Time IRC & PHRF (Shared)
IRC: Lady Mariposa – Audrey Yakunin
PHRF: Senara – Joseph Goulet
OVERALL WINNER OF THE PINEAPPLE CUP – First Overall Corrected Time IRC Rated Boat
Lady Mariposa
Hugh Piggin
Manuka Sports Event Management
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Photo Credits: Manuka Sports Event Management & Sharon Green