Chris Skin­ner, a for­mer boat­man, is now the new pres­i­dent of the T&T Power­boat As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA). He took over from Mar­cus Gomez, fol­low­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion's an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) and elec­tion on Mon­day night.

Skin­ner, who ad­mit­ted to not be­ing around the sport for a while, promis­es to forge a clos­er re­la­tion­ship with the in­ter­na­tion­al body-the IM, and there­by have more in­ter­na­tion­al com­peti­tors for the Great Race.

"Speak­ing with mem­bers of the com­mit­tee that was elect­ed last night, we want to forge a clos­er re­la­tion­ship with the in­ter­na­tion­al body- the IM, and put back in world records in the Great Race to en­cour­age for­eign par­tic­i­pants to come down to T&T beat our records," Skin­ner said.

He not­ed: "It is an aim and am­bi­tion of the com­mit­tee to forge a bet­ter re­la­tion­ship with the IM and they would help us at­tract boats for the Great Race. The tag is to have the Great Race put in­to few speed brack­ets and have a world record for each brack­et, so it would not just be one type of boat but many types of boats that will qual­i­fy to try and achieve a world record."

He leads a four-man ex­ec­u­tive that com­pris­es Paul Fos­ter as the vice pres­i­dent, Al­fred Bell as the trea­sur­er and Richard Ramd­war as his sec­re­tary, as well as a com­mit­tee of eight mem­bers which in­cludes Pe­ter Peake, Roger Bell, Col­in Mouser, Trevor Sun, Aj­mal Mustapha, An­tho­ny Scott, Robert Lobo and Je­re­my Welch.

How­ev­er, with the cur­rent COVID-19 pan­dem­ic wreak­ing hav­oc among sports lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, Skin­ner ad­mit­ted that there will be chal­leng­ing times ahead for his ex­ec­u­tive, rang­ing from their abil­i­ty to put on rac­ing and re­gat­tas to spon­sor­ship.

Not­ing al­so that the gov­ern­ment has re­duced its sub­ven­tions to the or­gan­i­sa­tion, he said they will now have to re­ly on the pri­vate sec­tor for their spon­sor­ship, one that will be made even more chal­leng­ing by oth­er na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies (NG­Bs) com­pet­ing for spon­sor­ship al­so.

He con­grat­u­lat­ed for­mer pres­i­dent Gomez for the work he has done, say­ing Mon­day night's tran­si­tion was a smooth one and the or­gan­i­sa­tion's ac­counts were healthy.

Skin­ner told Guardian Me­dia Sports he was not go­ing to re-in­vent the wheel but rather en­sure that the rac­ers and their equip­ment are good, say­ing: "Once they have that, they have a sport."

The new power­boat boss al­so list­ed a few ways he in­tends to grow the sport, such as hav­ing an am­a­teur, non-rac­ing, fun event to get peo­ple in­volved, as well as hav­ing af­ford­able rac­ing in the low­er class­es and by en­cour­ag­ing race teams to ac­cept young 15 or 16-year-olds who may want to come and be around, "by pulling a span­ner etc."

T&T POWER­BOAT AS­SOC:

Chris Skin­ner (pres­i­dent), Paul Fos­ter (vice pres­i­dent), Al­fred Bell (trea­sure), Richard Ramd­war (sec­re­tary).

Com­mit­tee mem­bers: Pe­ter Peake, Roger Bell, Col­in Mouser, Trevor Sun, Aj­mal Mustapha, An­tho­ny Scott, Robert Lobo, Je­re­my Welch