Camille Clarke

Yacht­ing pi­o­neer and re­cip­i­ent of the Trin­i­ty Cross (Gold) Harold La Bor­de has died in Grena­da.

In a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day, his son Pierre, who flew back to Grena­da for his au­top­sy to­day, said his fa­ther is sus­pect­ed to have ac­ci­den­tal­ly slipped and fall­en at the ma­ri­na, hit­ting his head while va­ca­tion­ing on the is­land.

Pierre said they sailed up to Grena­da in May and were go­ing to sail back to Trinidad next week as part of a fam­i­ly rit­u­al to spend time with friends there.

"It was like a sec­ond home and he was in good health. It was an ac­ci­dent and pend­ing an au­top­sy...so it is ten­ta­tive at this time. We be­lieve he slipped and fell go­ing down to the docks and hit his head and was un­con­scious," he said.

Pierre de­scribed his fa­ther as "an in­spi­ra­tion" to his fel­low cit­i­zens and to for­eign­ers who vis­it­ed T&T.

"He was a great sailor and a great hero for T&T and he ful­filled his dream sail­ing around the world and he ful­filled what he set out to do."

La Bor­de, who would have turned 83 on Sat­ur­day, wrote three books about his world trav­els, in­clud­ing aboard the Hum­ming Bird II which was used in his first around the world voy­age and is still at the mu­se­um in down­town Port-of-Spain.

In a re­lease sent yes­ter­day, his niece, Mar­cia, said it was with a heavy heart and a pro­found sense of loss that his fam­i­ly shared his pass­ing with T&T.

"Borne by the winds that filled the sails of suc­ces­sive boats named Hum­ming Bird, the La Bor­de fam­i­ly cir­cum­nav­i­gat­ed the globe twice, mak­ing life­long friends and lit­er­al­ly fly­ing our na­tion­al flag around the world," she said.

The re­lease added that La Bor­de was in the process of be­gin­ning prepa­ra­tion for an in-depth doc­u­men­tary of his life.

La Bor­de leaves to mourn his wife, Kwailan La Bor­de, sons Pierre and An­dre La Bor­de, three grand­chil­dren, his broth­ers Rudy and Hugh.

Mar­cia said fu­ner­al arrange­ments will be an­nounced at a lat­er date.