“Winning the Pineapple Cup is like a dream come true. You hear about these trophies, the trophies that have been around for forever, and now to have gone out and won that trophy is extraordinary.” Prospector’s Paul McDowell
The final party was last night at the Montego Bay Yacht Club where we celebrated winners of the 33rd edition of the Pineapple Cup – Montego Bay Race!
A stunning evening under a moonlit sky had the over 100 attendees enjoying the superb Montego Bay hospitality while the hardware was presented.
Some of the notable dignatires in attendance included Acting Custos Rotolorum Claudette Bryan, Montego Bay Mayor Homer Davis, MBYC Commodore Nigel Knowles and Royal Jamaican Yacht Club Past Commodore Andrew Thwaites.
The trophy itself was presented by Acting Custos Rotolorum Claudette Bryan on behalf of the Govenor General Sir Patrick Allen. In addition to the Govenor Generals trophy, the Silver Rose Bowl was presented to Wizard for line honors. The Arawak Perpetual Trophy was presented to Hermie Louise for their first place finish in the PHRF division. The Silver Seahorse Trophy also was awarded to Prospector for the top corrected time in the IRC division.
Paul McDowell co-owner of Prospector said, “The Pineapple Cup was one of those races that you remember from way back in the day. I used to do a lot of IOR races in the 1980’s, so you’d see Kialoa and Windward Passage win [the Pineapple Cup]; some of the greatest ocean racers of all time have won this race. So we said ‘this has got to be one on our bucket list that we have to do, the Pineapple Cup.’ And so here we are!
We have a mixture of professionals and Corinthians, we’re not one of the all professional crews where you have just owners and nothing but professionals; we race with our friends. Ken Read is one of the top professionals in the world, but he’s been my friend of 35 years, so he raced with us as a friend, not as a professional. [We said] ‘Lets go have fun like we used to back in the day.’ We came to race with our friends, but we take it seriously.
Winning the Pineapple Cup is like a dream come true. You hear about these trophies, the trophies that have been around for forever, and now to have gone out and won that trophy is extraordinary.”
Acting Custos Rotolorum Claudette Bryan on behalf of the Govenor General Sir Patrick Allen. Custos Bryan said, “This is a wonderful tradition that Jamaica has held for many years and to see the camaraderie, the participants and competitors in this kind of fashion and to see the time and effort they have made to compete in this traditional race, it is an honor. And so I believe Jamaica has something great going and I encourage this race to continue as long as it can because Jamaica has much to offer.”
Eamonn de Lisser, Owner, Senara,“It’s always a great race, this is my seventh, I love ’em. Sailing through the Bahamas was some of the prettiest sailing we’ve done and our last night was just beautiful lots of moon, light air, easy sailing. If you were cruising, you’d never stop!”
2nd place PHRF Renegade’s Tom Slade, “If you’ve never done [the Pineapple Cup] before, you’ve gotta try. it’s got a little taste of everything for you, so it can be miserable and it can be exhilarating. Our last night we had great winds from behind us, we did a lot of time surfing, and it was an experience of a lifetime!”
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