Awards, Cheers, and Smiles at Pacific Cup Final Ceremony
In the traditional wrap-up for the Pacific Cup, the FUN race to Hawaii, Commodore Bob Hinden orchestrated the distribution of dozens of awards. In keeping with the “FUN race” slogan, many of these awards had less to do with speed and more with family, preparation, and volunteerism. Several of the awards were granted twice: once each in the PHRF and ORR rating schemes.
A special award, the US Sailing Hansen Lifesaving Medal, was presented to the crew of Zaff, along with a certificate presented by the United States Coast Guard, in recognition of a rescue performed in an earlier race near the Golden Gate.
And then, on to the Pacific Cup awards:
The Doug Vann award for Hawaii volunteering was granted to longtime supporter Georgia Schmidt. On the Pacific Cup YC side, Commodore Hinden named Bob and Betty Gray as recipients of the George Barrett award in recognition of their many years supporting the race.
The Best Prepared Yacht award went to Dark Horse (Shad Lemke). This award is based on nominations from the inspectors and ultimately selected by chief inspector Jeff Duvall.
Two designers’ trophies: the Carl Schumacher award went to Dorado, Brendan Huffman’s Express 37, and the Bill Lee “Wizard” trophy went to Merlin, Chip Merlin’s Santa Cruz 70 (give or take a few feet).
The team of Ragtime, Halawa, and Merlin collected the team trophy for St Francis Yacht Club. We will see more of those boats below!
A vote of the second- and third-place navigators placed Charles Devanneaux in possession of the Navigator’s Award, a classic boxed sextant. Rahan’s sprint across the Pacific, avoiding getting too slowed down in the light stuff, impressed us all.
The 1000th Boat To Finish award was bestowed on Penelope and her skipper Ben Emery. Ben is expected to be interviewed on KTVU television at 8:15 Sunday morning!
Pacific Cup likes to recognize the efforts of the amateur and new crews. The Best Performance in a First Pacific Passage was awarded dually: for ORR, it went to Tina Roberts, skippering Ragtime (incidentally also the overall ORR winner). For PHRF, the first passage awardee was Don Jesberg aboard Viva, a Cal 40.
Another Cal 40, Duende (means “elf” in Spanish) collected the Fastest Family Afloat prize, going to the best corrected time boat with a certain percentage of family members. Duende crew included Philip Lavelle (father), Giuseppe (son), and Renzo (son).
To nobody’s surprise, the Fastest Passage award went to Zeus, the Infiniti 52, skippered by Michael Firmin. Although a light air patch slowed everybody’s time, Zeus made the most (or least) of it, making the passage in 7 days 12:12:13. Slower boats have been heard to comment that they get more sailing time for their Pac Cup dollar.
The Pacific Cup, awarded to the best performing boat on corrected time, was given out twice. For Certified PHRF rated boats, the winner was Viva, Cal 40, Don Jesberg. Well done, Don!
For ORR, the overall winner was Ragtime, Spencer 65, Tina Roberts. We are pleased to remark that Tina was completing her first Pacific race, and Don, on Viva, won with a purely Corinthian (amateur) team.
For full results, see our standings page. For an excellent 2028, plan on racing to Hawaii with the Pacific Cup.
ragtime photo by Lauren Easley