De Silva hails Vesper crew’s team effort

Adrian De Silva, captain of Team Vesper, is still basking in their success at the 26th Annual International St Lucia Billfish tournament, held last weekend. The TT team reeled in the overall title and also had one of their members, Christian Valdez, win the Best Angler award.

Speaking to Newsday, De Silva lauded his committed team who have also qualified for the 2018 Offshore World Championship in Quepos, Costa Rica, in April.

Team Vesper members include De Silva, Peter Reid, Jerome McQuilkin, Derek Tardieu, Ritchie Neverson, Joshua Camacho and Valdez. De Silva said a total team effort was pivotal in their achievement.

“The accomplishment was another great one because we qualified for the Offshore World Championships and we could not have done it without the team. Everybody played a really good hand onboard, everybody did their duties,” De Silva said.

“I will like to congratulate everybody for their hard work and for their outstanding fishing. The fishing went very well and (congratulations to) Christian Valdez for getting best angler.” Valdez released the most blue marlins in the tournament. De Silva, a former national Junior Davis Cup player and top surfer, said it is no small feat to qualify for the Offshore World Championships, as it is a major event on the fishing calender.

“It is a very prestigious tournament, it is one of the bigger fishing tournaments in the world.”

De Silva explained the conditions in Costa Rica will be quite different to TT but expects them to do well.

“Costa Rica does not have the mixed bag of fish like Trinidad and Tobago, but they have a lot of sailfish with some blue and black marlin in between.

The championships are on the Leeward side of Costa Rica, on the Pacific side, and usually it is pretty calm.”

Prior to the Offshore Championships, Team Vesper will be competing throughout the southern Caribbean. “We usually compete in the southern Caribbean circuit which is Barbados, St Lucia, Grenada, Martinique and there are two tournaments in Tobago.”

De Silva said they are trying to get funding from the Government to help support the trip to Costa Rica.