PAUL CLARKE, STAR Writer

JAMAICA will have one home-based representative in this year's Pineapple Cup, the 32nd Biennial Boat Race, which is set to start in Fort Everglades, Florida, on Friday, February 6, and which will send its 12-boat fleet on a challenging 811 nautical mile course to Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Sailing in IRC division, the J/120 Miss Jamaica will have aboard it Montego Bay Yacht Club Commodore Nigel Knowles and his 16-year-old daughter, Zoe Knowles, who is youth commodore for the club.

"It felt only right to have our own team compete in a race that we run (in partnership with Storm Trysail Club and Lauderdale Yacht Club)," said the elder Knowles.

"The breaking news now is that we have the youngest-ever participant aboard as well," Nigel added.

Knowles said his team will arrive in Fort Lauderdale February 3 for two days of training before the start.

"It will be a fairly steep learning curve. We've mostly never sailed together as a group, but one of us (Jim Wilson) has sailed on an identical boat, and we are all very active in a smaller version of the boat, the J/22, which we sail every two weeks at Montego Bay and Kingston."

Shockwave won both overall honours and her IRC division in 2013 after finishing just 58 minutes short of the elapsed time record (two days, 10 hours and 24 minutes, set in 2005 by Titan 12).