The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@trobunemedia.net

A SHIFT in the weather may have played a vital role in the way Team Bahamas performed during the sailing competition of the XXII Central American and Caribbean Games last week in Veracruz, Mexico.

Paul de Souza, the youngest member of the team at age 14, finished 10th overall in the Sunfish Class. The gold medal went to Jacobo Margules of Mexico, while Hugo Guzman of Guatemala picked up the silver and the bronze went to David Gonzalez from Venezuela.

The team of 65-year-old skipper Robert Dunkley and his 38-year-old crew member Michelle Hope ended up sixth in the Snipe Class. Winning the gold was skipper Raul Diaz and crew Rafael Garcia while Venezuela’s skipper Marx Chiros and crew Carlos Aguirre got the silver and the bronze went to Mexico’s skipper Camila Flores and crew Nicolas Flores.

“I think we had a tough time. Our performance wasn’t what we were hoping for,” said Dunkley in an interview with The Tribune on their return home. “It was tough because of the wind conditions and the rain. It was something that we weren’t used to. It was blowing 16 knots and up.

“After the first day, the weather just changed on us. We tried to make the adjustments, but it was just tough. We kept close with everybody, but we just didn’t have the boat speed to get into one of the top fleet positions. It was a good event and we tried our best.”

As the eldest member of the eight fleets that participated, Dunkley said he had a difficult time trying to compete with the much younger skippers, but he said he was still proud to have been afforded the opportunity to represent the Bahamas in such a prestigious event.

It was back in 2006 in Cartagena, Colombia where Dunkley and Hope came close to getting on the podium when they finished fourth in their previous appearance at the games.

Dunkley, however, said it was more difficult this time around for him and Hope to get any hardware.

The XXIII games are set for Barranquilla, Colombia in 2018, but no date has been set. Dunkley doesn’t envision being a competitor, but he is confident that if de Souza continues to improve on the experience he gained in Veracruz, he could be a force to reckon with in four years. “It was good to see another Bahamian competing in the games,” Dunkley said. “I think Paul did very well for his first appearance. I think he will do very well in the future. Plus we have a good group of youngsters competing, so we could see one or two more competing by then.”

Lori Lowe, the president of the Bahamas Sailing Association and the team manager for the sailing team, concurred with Dunkley on their performances.

“We sent a team that was a light weight team and the conditions were heavy,” she said. “But we’re reasonably pleased with what they did, given those conditions. I think both of them showed what they can do in light air. Robert had a second and Paul had a few fourth and fifth.”

Lowe admitted that the best of the weather wasn’t on their side.

“We had some interesting weather conditions there. We had a cold front that came through and their cold fronts are not. They are 16 knots. We had at least one race in 30 knots,” she said. “But I think we could have done a lot better and we could have done a lot worse. So if it had been a light wind regatta, the potential was there for both of them to medal. But they didn’t and that was because the conditions were not what they needed to medal.”

While Lowe acknowledged the fact that Dunkley and Hope did as best as they could, she felt that de Souza will be the future of sailing for the Bahamas.

“It was a fabulous experience for him and I think in four years time, he will be an all-around sailor,” she said. “He was light, so it was like putting a welterweight in boxing against a heavyweight in conditions like this. When we went to the regatta, the conditions were heavier than we expected and heavier air than the average.

“We knew they had these cold fronts, but we didn’t expect the winds to be so consistently high. But I think they both did very well. We know what we need to do in the future, if we can accomplish it. We have to create the conditions for our sailors to get there and that will take funding and coaching to do it.”

de Souza, according to Lowe, is as close to a professional as they come and so they have to ensure that he gets the level of training that will prepare him because she believes that he has the potential to qualify for next year’s Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada, the next major event on the circuit.