From age thirteen, the sea and boats have been Rawle Barrow's "way of life, I just couldn't do without a boat" says this nearly 67 year old man who is still a participant in the many Caribbean sailing competitions. Just that he has had the good sense to change categories to the easier cruising class from the racing class where in 1984 he was given the Angostura/Yachting World Trophy for keeps having won that class for three consecutive years during Tobago Sail Week.
This stockily built man who admits to having mashed up his knees jumping in and out of boats", has also had his vessel "Petit Careme" which he has co-owned for the past eighteen years with former head of Dominion Oil and United States resident Bob Levorsen, chosen for the cover of the November 2000 issue of Yachting World, after winning the cruising class in Tobago Sail Week. Always in winners' row, he placed second this year.
Barrow's start in the world of boats at age 13 may have been inauspicious, but his achievements on his way to and from taking part in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics with his brother Cordell as crew, have been the exact opposite. His sailing friend from aa far back as1952, Levorsen, as manager of the yachting team to the Olympics, persuaded the American Olympic team to take a boat to Tokyo for the Barrows, who had flown there with the Trinidad & Tobago team. The brothers did not win but the experience did make Rawle start to think and he realised that in order to do well in any sport there must be a high level of competition to prepare and one must be financially able to do so. "I was bringing up a family of three young daughters and had to work for a living. In those days you had to take your own holidays to compete. Also after the Olympics, Cordell, my crew for so many years, called it quits and migrated to the United States. We were a real good team, he tall and slender and I was short and stocky."
Barrow's introduction to the world of boats came when his family moved to Church Street , St James. "The Hordatt family had the corner house, I used to hear noises like sawing of wood and peeped through the galvanised fence to find that the commotion was a boat being built. Wilfred Hordatt , who is now dead, saw me and I took off running, but he grabbed me and said come, come, come, taking me into the yard where the boat was being built. I was the youngest of all these other teen-aged boys so my job was to keep the place clean, I was at the bottom of the totem pole. Eventually the boat was launched, naturally I went down to see the boat in the water - not in the habit of going to the sea - but had to wait my turn to go out on the boat."
That was the beginning of a love affair which has lasted for fifty-four years. Rawle joined the Fifth Trinidad Sea Scouts with Canzie Johnson as Scout Master, "which gave me licence to go sailing so I had both scouting, sailing, rowing and then swimming, which should really have been the other way around learning to swim first."
As the years rolled by Barrow moved up to crewing with Hordatt until two things happened motivating him to build his own boat, the Barrows moved to Clarence Street and Hordatt went away to study and sold his boat. "I was working at the Gazette when I built my Snipe, a 15' 6" dinghy with a sail. It took me about four years to build that thing but I was still sailing as crew for the late Stanley Gordon to whom Wilfred had sold his boat." Rawle recalls "a nice part of this is that when Wilfred went to England he sent me the sails for the boat as in those days sails were expensive.
After doing reaonably well with his Snipe, Barrow moved to the rebel class, an 18 foot boat, not caring that all his friends in St James/Woodbrook were into cricket, football and cycling: "I had to stay with sailing my feet were flat and I couldn't run. But I did not really like running and bouncing into people. And if you really like something and put your mind to it, you will eventually get what you want with proper planning and stick-to-itiveness, you might not get it right away."
His overriding interest as a competitor is very obvious by the many, many trophies and awards which adorn the porch of his Diego Martin home, the latest being the 2000 Millennium Sports Award for Yachting. Somewhere in the 80's he was inducted into the West Indian Tobacco's Hall of Fame for his achievements in yachting from 1963 to 1970. One medal which he treasures is the bronze won in 1959 as a member of the only West Indian Federation's team which went to the Pan American Games in Chicago and competed in the Flying Dutchman's class. "John Bennett and I were the two Trinidadians on the team". It was on his return home that he sold his rebel and built his first Flying Dutchman "Firebird" and in 1962 won his first Gold Medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Jamaica with "Firebird."
In 1963 he placed fourth at the Pan American Games in Brazil with a borrowed boat "the yachting fraternity is very kind particularly with lending of smaller boats; it was too much money to carry my own boat" says this most appreciative man who spoke about his racing companions through the years. "The crew for all my boats" including his Canadian-born wife of 31 years, Merilee, with whom he has son Kent "she sails with me all the time, my competitors, sailing with great sailors like Dougie Myers and Sidney Knox. I still try to learn from the competition even at this late stage."
Bob Levorsen's name, which is never far from his lips, surfaced in connection with the Trinidad/Grenada Girl Pat Race which the Yachting Association started in 1962: "It came about after Bob and I, during a vacation camp at Monos, decided to try the route from Monos Island into the Bocas, and were successful."
After the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Barrow stuck gold again in 1966 at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Puerto Rico. However, lady luck was not with him at the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg where Barrow learned an important lesson. Because of the long summer days, the competitors got together to play soccer on spare afternoons, and it was on the day before the final race, with his boat lying in fourth position, that he sprained his ankle and could not sail in the last race "our chances of a medal were already slim. But I learned and would like to pass this on to all athletes when you come to these games be very careful and stick with your sport, it would have been better to play cards, you cannot smash up your fingers that way."
The time to move on to a different class had come and with Junior Evans he bought "Sweet Luv." We imported the hull from England, the front of my house became a shanty town as Junior and myself spent nine months completing the boat with bunks, engines, sails, mast, Finally very early one morning, at 1a.m, Barrow decided the time had come to hoist his sails, drop anchor and with water flowing into the engine from a garden hose, and an icebox of beers, Sweet Luv's engines were running right on his front lawn: "You would normally finish these things at the sea launch."
After racing Sweet Luv in many a regatta, Levorsen and Barrow teamed up and bought a French boat, which they named "Petit Careme", reminiscent of the French language and the October/November weather season which we experience in Trinidad and Tobago called "Petit Careme."