Pierre La Borde says it was an honour to bring the body his father back to T&T on the boat he built. He says his father did not like flying and preferred sailing.
La Borde said he was proud of his father’s accomplishments as his father’s books about his voyages influenced people to sail. La Borde’s father, Harold, was a well-known sailor who circumnavigated the world. Harold died in Grenada on June 12.
Pierre and his younger brother, Andre, who flew to Grenada from New Zealand, sailed with their father’s casket from Grenada to T&T. They docked the Hummingbird III at the Coast Guard headquarters at Staubles Bay, Chaguaramas around 8.40 am on Sunday.
After offloading the casket, the brothers went to Customs and Immigration and then rested until late evening after the long journey between the islands. La Borde said: “It was just a coincidence that he arrived on his birthday. That was special for us.”
The brothers said they missed celebrating Father’s Day yesterday and their father's 83rd birthday on Saturday but while they will think of him, they that he is now in a better place.
La Borde, 52, said he was five years old when he went on his first voyage with his father and was nine when they returned. He said as a child being out at sea was second nature. On reflection, he said it was a really, special childhood.
“On the second round the world voyage I was a young man of 22 when we came back. I also sailed with him across the Atlantic in the year 2000.” Andre, 46, was born in New Zealand on the couple's first voyage. He resides there with his family.
La Borde said one of the highlights of his father's career was sailing around Cape Horn which is at the bottom of South America. He compared it to climbing Mount Everest.
“The main purpose of that second round the world voyage was to say that you sailed around Cape Horn and had been through the toughest weather. It was a long journey across the Pacific.”
La Borde said he and his girlfriend at the time, Ave, accompanied his father on that journey.
“That was probably the happiest day of his life to achieve such a great goal,” he said.