At this evening’s Rolex Award Ceremony, six skippers were awarded the St. Francis Yacht Club’s six Perpetual Trophies, earned for success in each of six racing classes during the Rolex Big Boat Series. Today’s final race – the Bay Tour, ranging from 14.21 to 15.44 nautical miles for the two divisions – concluded the 42nd annual regatta. Each of the six Perpetual Trophy winners also was presented with Rolex Steel Submariner timepieces in recognition of their accomplishments.
The oldest trophy, the St. Francis Perpetual Trophy, was awarded to IRC A class winner Jim Gregory (Danville, Calif.) on Morpheus. “This is the first first in the boat’s history,” said Gregory of his 2001-built Schumacher 50. “We were second last time around and we really thought that Zephyra could not be beaten. I’m going to be celebrating.” Morpheus narrowly defeated the defending champion Robert Youngjohn’s (Woodside, Calif.) DK46 Zephyra, which finished second ahead of Swiftsure II, owned by Sy Kleineman who celebrated his 26th Big Boat competition. Today’s line honors in IRC A went to Lani Spund’s (Los Gatos, Calif. ) Kokopelli2, which corrected to fourth overall.