Ben Mitchell
Only three boats started the 35th Pineapple Cup – Montego Bay Race, led by the modified Volvo70 Pyewacket70 which hoped to break the monohull course record for the 811 nm course from Miami, FL to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
However, after starting on January 22, their elapsed time finish on January 25 of 2 days 18 hours 20 minutes and 19 seconds missed the pace set in 2005 by the R/P 75 Titan 12 (02:10:24:42).
But it remained a good time according to Ben Mitchell, watch captain along with Gary Weisman, who figures they received their roles due to being the oldest on the boat, with a world class crew ready to make them look good. Here are Mitchell’s dockside comments:
It was a great race, super fun! We got out of Miami really fast, probably fastest crossing of the Gulf Stream we’ve ever had. For those of us that raced during the SORC era, in much slower boats, we recall how it took quite a long time to get across the stream. But in this boat, this race, it took us just three and a half hours out to Isaacs, and then to Stirrup.
So, the race started quite fast, and our goal was to try and match or improve the record set by Titan many years back. We had a pretty good exit; routing was looking good and were ahead of schedule all the way down through the Bahamas. As we passed Eleuthera we knew there was going to be a little high-pressure bubble sitting all around the Bahamas creating a convergence zone…