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Everyone wants
the Lipton Cup

I imagine most sailors are aware that the America's Cup is the oldest trophy in sports continually being competed for in the world.

As a matter of fact, the America's Cup has been periodically vied for since 1851, when the Royal Yacht Squadron of England offered a "100-Guinea Cup" to the winner of a yacht race open to all nations.

When the schooner America, from the New York Yacht Club, subsequently captured the trophy, its members renamed it the America's Cup and took it home to the U.S., where it stayed for decades before being won by the Australians, the New Zealanders and now, the unexpected Swiss.

Similarly, Hawaii's sailors have a historic sailing trophy called the Lipton Cup that has been competed for since the 1930s and, interestingly, it has a direct relation to the America's Cup.

At the end of the 19th century, Scottish shipping tycoon and tea merchant Sir Thomas Lipton began what became a winless 30-year campaign to capture the America's Cup with a series of yachts named Shamrock.

In 1930 -- just a year before his death -- he visited the Territory of Hawaii, among other places in the U.S., and presented the local yachtsmen with the trophy that now bears his name.

Initially, it became the annual prize for Hawaii's Star Boat Fleet, but since 1987, it has been awarded to the winner of an annual statewide yacht-club challenge that, until recently, was more of an Oahu trifecta among the Hawaii, Kaneohe and Waikiki yachts clubs.

Last year's Lipton Cup Race though, saw a new challenger -- the somewhat obscure Maui Boat and Yacht Club. A bigger surprise was that its entry was the J-35 Ho'okipa, skippered by Mike Rothwell, that had won the previous three years for the WYC. Rothwell has a dual membership and was racing for the MB&YC that year.

Last weekend, the MB&YC hosted the 2005 Lipton Cup Race offshore West Maui, but when its intended entry -- again Ho'okipa -- developed structural problems, it was forced to race with another boat, the J105 Noa.

Whether this substitution had any effect on the outcome of the four-race series is speculation, but in the end, the Lipton Cup was won -- and returned to Oahu -- by the KYC entry, the J-29 Excalibur, skippered by Rick Osborne.

Nevertheless, as MB&YC's Bruce Olsten told me, "Our members were very honored to host some of the finest sailors in Hawaii in an event that is taken very seriously."

"And although the Cup is going back to Oahu for now," he added, "I think its one-year excursion to Maui was a blessing in disguise. (After) last year's winning challenge by MB&YC's first-timers, the race grew this year with a first-ever challenge from the Big Island's Kona Sailing Club.

"For the first time ever," Olsten noted, "three islands are producing challengers that promise to be in Kaneohe for the next race in 2006."