The World Cup Blue Marlin Championship (World Cup) is an international event that took place on July 4 in 18 countries and territories with 130 teams participating. However, for the second year in a row, it was Bermuda where the winning blue marlin was landed.
Kevin Gaylord reeled in the winning 668-pound marlin aboard the 77-foot Blank Check with Capt. Danny Hearn at the controls. Prize money totaled over $300,000 for the single heaviest marlin in the one-day event. In the World Cup, there is no second place.
After Blank Check ended fishing at 4:30 p.m. in its time zone in Bermuda, the team had to sweat out the fishing action in later time zones to see if its catch would hold up to win.
In the final westernmost time zone, a fleet of 43 boats left Kona, Hawaii, determined to top Gaylord’s 668-pound marlin. The team aboard Medusa came close when it weighed in a 660-pound Pacific blue marlin. Even at the 4:30 p.m. lines-out time in Kona, the issue was still in doubt.
The team aboard the Krista-O was still hooked up to a heavy fish which it continued to fight. It was almost an hour later that the Krista-O‘s team discovered that its fish was a non-qualifying tuna. Only at that time could the Blank Check team start the celebration.
Two teams in the Cape Verde Islands had landed smaller qualifying marlin and another Bermuda team, fishing aboard Overproof, also came close to winning with a 641-pound fish.
Other locations where the 29th annual World Cup had teams fishing included Fiji; Angola; Algarve, Portugal; Madeira; Azores; the Canary Islands; Cape Verde, San Salvador and Abacos, Bahamas; Bermuda, the Gulf Of Mexico out of Alabama and Texas; St. Thomas, USVI; Panama; Trinidad and Tobago; Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Kona, Hawaii; and French Polynesia.
For questions or comments pertaining to the World Cup Blue Marlin Championship, please contact tournament director Mike Leech at 954-566-2813 or via email at [email protected].
