Pineapple Cup Awards Evening Celebrates 2019 Winners
by Pineapple Cup 2 Feb 2019 14:23 PST
2 February 2019
Lady Mariposa Pineapple cup winners - 2019 Pineapple Cup © Edward Downer / Pineapple Cup
Last night the Montego Bay Yacht Club celebrated winners of the 34th edition of the Pineapple Cup Montego Bay Race. Over 170 attendees including the Honorable Custos Rotolorum Bishop Conrad Pitkin, His Worship Mayor Homer Davis of Montego Bay, MBYC Commodore Nigel Knowles and Royal Jamaican Yacht Club Past Commodore Andrew Thwaites were on hand for the awarding of the Governor General's Trophy, also known as the Pineapple Cup.
The Pineapple Cup is one of the oldest yachting trophies dating back to 1961 where it was handcrafted in London. Throughout the years, the trophy has been awarded to some of the most well known names in yachting including: John Kilroy, Ted Turner and Robert F Johnson. The winner of the 2019 Governor General's Trophy was awarded to the first place team in IRC, which was Lady Mariposa.
The trophy itself was presented by Honorable Custos Rotolorum Bishop Conrad Pitkin. on behalf of the Governor General of Jamaica Sir Patrick Allen. Custos Pitkin said, "Welcome to the international teams who have competed in this 811 nautical mile race. I join in the club in conveying special commendations to the winner's of this year's Pineapple cup who have every reason to be proud of their achievements. We applaud and share your sense of satisfaction."
In addition to the Governor Generals trophy, the Silver Rose Bowl was presented to the Volvo 70 Wizard for fastest elapsed time for a monohull at 3 days 3 hours 52 minutes and 13 seconds. The Arawak Perpetual Trophy was presented to Argo for their first place finish in the multihull division. Argo was also awarded the trophy for breaking not only the multihull, but outright course record.
Horst Baier, James Bill and Eamonn Delisser's Farr 395 Senara 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. Senara also received 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 with the most competitors. Felix was a long time member to the Montego Bay Yacht Club, who recently passed away. She was an integral part of the Pineapple Cup organization for decades and anyone who ever raced the Pineapple Cup or sailed into the Montego Bay Yacht Club knew her. The trophy was presented by her sister, Carrie.
Eamonn Delisser co-owner of Senara said, "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. There was no ambient light so until we got into the windward passage we just stared at instruments because there was no way to tell which way the boat was going at night. 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."
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