ORANGE BEACH — The greatest spectacle in sportfishing continues to grow. Ahead of the 11th-annual Blue Marlin Grand Championship this weekend, The Wharf has completed additions to help make a splash.

Construction recently finished on a new billfish crane on the docks of The Wharf Marina that will speed up getting the biggest prizes of the tournament wheeled up to Marlin Circle, where hosts Jim Cox and Kelly Finley will be running the show.

“That's going to be kind of cool for a couple of reasons. One is just it's always a challenge to get a marlin out of a boat that is backed in because there's just no other way. There's never been another way to do it except just get a bunch of strong guys and lift that thing out of there and get it onto a cart,” Cox said. “That will also speed up getting the fish from the back of the boat to be up at Marlin Circle to get it to the crowd. Because I'm always up there saying, ‘What's taking them so long? Hurry up, come on, everybody wants to see it.’ So that'll be cool. Somebody's going to be the first one to ever use that so we're excited about that.”

Cox also said the hosts will be complemented by a second jumbotron screen this year and that there will be additional features revealed to the crowd this weekend.

“We added a second jumbotron this year so we'll have two jumbotrons there on Marlin Circle for the crowds to be able to see no matter where you're at in The Wharf,” Cox said. “We’ve got a few new tricks up our sleeve that we'll unveil on Friday night for the crowd to have some fun and interact with us. We're always about the show, that's what we put a lot of our focus on is the show and making the teams feel like rockstars when they come in to weigh their fish at The Wharf.”

Those teams have been fishing all summer through the Gulf Coast Triple Crown, which started with the Orange Beach Billfish Classic on May 16-21. The contest went to Biloxi, Mississippi for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Billfish Classic as well as Sandestin, Florida for the Emerald Coast Blue Marlin Classic in June.

Entering this weekend's competition fishing, Mollie holds the lead, but about a dozen teams have a shot at the Gulf Coast Triple Crown trophy. Thanks to a first-place weighed blue marlin from the Orange Beach tournament with a record-breaking 776.4 pounds, Mollie owns the tiebreaker against the four other teams with 250 points.

“Anybody that's not even on the leaderboard could actually win it with a big showing at the tournament here,” Cox said. “It's really up for grabs at this at this point, which is the way we'd like it. We'd love that anybody fishing in the tournament can have a chance to have a chance to win it.”

Mollie took the Gulf Coast Triple Crown in 2017 title back home to Destin, Florida, but no team has won the Blue Marlin Grand Championship multiple times. Last year, Orange Beach boats stole the show when Nick Crovato reeled in the championship blue marlin for It Just Takes Time to win the BMGC.

“They've won the Biloxi tournament three different times so they've got some history on their side of winning tournaments more than once,” Cox said of It Just Takes Time. “Could they be the first team to ever win this tournament more than once? That'd be really cool to see somebody do that for the first time.”

Cox said a positive forecast should allow the expert anglers to not be restricted on where they can find the winning fish, which will eventually feed local families in need.

Once again this year, the E&E Dantin Foundation will receive the blue marlins caught in the championship tournament and will have volunteers help process and distribute the fish meat around the Baldwin County community.

It will all be going down at The Wharf this weekend with the next champion to be crowned with a champagne shower on Saturday night. There is no cost to park or attend the Blue Marlin Grand Championship.

“It's just a fun family event at no cost, tons people plan their vacations to come around this time. Get out there early and the one thing I want to remind everybody is where Marlin Circle is, as soon as about five o'clock when the sun gets on the other side of the condos there at The Wharf, we're all in the shade,” Cox said.