The Tribune

Paul de Souza managed to outmanoeuvre the competition, making the best of shifting and variable wind and wave conditions to secure overall first place in the Bahamas Junior National Sunfish Championships in Montagu Bay.

The field of competitors included boys and girls, some as young as 11 and weighing as little as 70 pounds.

On day one of competition they encountered a southern breeze of four to 12 knots coming over New Providence making for shifty and variable conditions with the occasional shift in excess of 90 degrees.

Day two brought slightly more consistent conditions, but throughout the regatta, the conditions kept the young sailors on their toes, avoiding the potential disasters of auto tacks and flipping their boats.

Some reaped the benefits of the huge shifts, leaping past many competitors while others were left in the back after finding themselves on the wrong side of a shift through no fault of their own. The variable winds definitely made for an interesting regatta.

The overall winner with four first place finishes in the six race series was Paul de Souza, who recently returned from the Youth Worlds in another and smaller sailboat, the Optimist.

Paul managed to pull himself up by five places in one race and ended up edging out another competitor in another race by less than a boat length. In the two races not taken by de Souza, Tyler Cartwright of Long Island and Devaughn Williamson, a member of the Bahamas’ national soccer team for his age group, were victorious.

Second and third places overall were taken by the other Bahamian representatives at the Optimist World Championship earlier this summer, Alande Forbes and Spencer Cartwright.

Worth mentioning is that after day one, Daniel Gibson, a former national champion in the Optimist, held second place but was unfortunately unable to attend on Sunday and protect that position.

The top female was Paloma Cartwright of Long Island who recently represented the Bahamas at the Scripts National Spelling Bee in the United States. All the competitors sailed well and should be proud of their accomplishments.