b'SilverSailfishDerbyTo say that the Silver Sail\x1fsh Derby is the touchstone for all other bill\x1fsh tournaments is not a small thing.Today such contests are held by the hundreds in all the worlds seas.\x1eeir range of awards, formats, rules and entry requirements is as vast as angling itself.However, they are all descended from a special place and time: West Palm Beach in January of 1935.\x1ee very \x1frst Silver Sail\x1fsh Derby ran for about two weeks that year and was designed primarily to serve as a spur to the beleaguered charter boat industry, most of which was located at the City Docks directly across from where the WPBFC clubhouse now sits.Its promoters were amateurs on the skinniest of budgets.Planning was hasty at best.Nonetheless, that the event survives today as the great and worthy patriarch of so many others is nothing short of remarkable.- Mike Rivkin, big game \x1fshing historian & author of \x1ee West Palm Beach Fishing Club: A 75-Year History'