[caption id="attachment_603" align="alignleft" width="277" caption="photo: Mariah's Eyes (510) 864-1144 Ad for December 1998"][/caption]

Pearson Ariel #191 was already racing when Pineapple Sails began making sails twenty-five years ago. But somewhere between the early seventies and the mid eighties, the boat stopped racing. And then she stopped sailing. Three years ago, Hugh Davis bought the boat at a lien sale and after months of scraping crusty old bottom paint, and replacing standing and running rigging, and put-ting together a determined crew, she was back in racing shape.

But she still wasn't winning races.

So at the end of the 1997 season, Hugh ordered a new set of Pineapple class sails. Unveiled only at the first race of the 1998 season (we were sworn to months of secrecy), the speed of the new sails surprised crew and competition alike. And Parranda finished the season in first place.

Still in the lead in a midseason Berkeley Circle race, after Hugh had completed a 720 to avoid a protest, one skipper hailed: "Do another 720, so you are still within sight when you finish!"