With three World Sunfish championships, two Pan Am Games silver medals and a Caribbean and Central America (CAC) Games bronze medal under his belt, Malcolm Smith really doesn?t need an introduction.

And the veteran skipper would probably prefer to have it that way, having been raised in the humble surroundings of his family?s poultry farm located at Windy Bank, Smith?s parish.

?I was raised on the farm and I really love the outdoor life. I definitely wasn?t one to go and get a job sitting behind a desk or anything else like that,? Smith told .

?I did a bit of marine construction work and worked on golf courses before ending up working with my father (Burt Smith) on our poultry farm where I have pretty much been for the past 25 years.?

It was at Agar?s Island, near Two Rock Passage in the Great Sound, where Smith first took sailing lessons as a participant of the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club?s junior programmes sailing in the Enterprise Dinghy.

?There are a few still lying around the Island, but most of the junior programmes use the 420 today,? Smith said. ?The first sailing I did was over at Agar?s Island where Judith Watson had a kid?s camp that she used to run over there.?

But it was in Harrington Sound where Smith?s 37-year-old love affair with sailing intensified.

?When I was 13 or 14 years old we had a small boat rental/marina down on Harrington Sound and I worked there for about three years renting sunfish and snorkelling equipment to tourist,? Smith recalled.

?And one of my earlier jobs was teaching tourists how to sail. They would come out of Palmetto Bay Hotel and we would give them a few basic lessons in sailing and send them on their way.?

At the time Smith was also a member of the former Harrington Sound Sailing and Gliding Club.

?That is where I got my first Sunfish,? he noted.

Little could Smith have envisioned what was to come as he would make a name for himself, both domestically and internationally, in the dinghy class after ?dabbling? a bit in the Optimist class.

?I was at school at Saltus Grammar School and our woodwork teacher had got a hold of some plans to build an Optimist and he built four wooden Optimists out of plywood up to the measurement specifications of the class,? Smith added.

?I dabbled in the Optimist for a bit but I outgrew them too fast and decided to move on to sailing the Sunfish and I spent many years sailing in the class down at Harrington Sound.

?I just found it fun not only just to go out and race but also just to sail around the Sound. We had a really nice group of sailors there (Harrington Sailing Club) and a lot of top Bermudian sailors who have since moved on to bigger boats.

?We used to race against Peter Bromby, Sandy?s Boat Club and even against the East End Mini Yacht Club. In those days the Sunfish was quite a popular boat around the Island.?

Bermuda hosted the Sunfish Worlds in 1972, an international regatta that would later catapult Smith onto the world stage.

?I think they had close to 100 boats for that worlds and a good portion of those boats stayed here in the Island and were probably sold for about $400 a piece,? Smith said. ?They were relatively cheap in that day of age because today a Sunfish can run close to $4,000.?

After all, it was the simplicity and cost efficiency of the Sunfish that appealed most to Smith.

?It?s such a simple boat. You launch it off the beach and hoist the sail and off you go,? he explained. ?It?s probably the simplest boat out there to rig and get out price-wise.?

But as a kid growing up in the Harrington Sound area, Smith, like many youngsters he age, was also able to find time to dive for lobsters and go fishing.

?I wasn?t just hooked on sailing,? he added. ?I was doing everything that all the other kids were doing at the time. I was playing soccer (at BAA) but I didn?t stay there for long.?

Smith would complete his final year in secondary school overseas at Tabor Academy in Marion, Massachusetts, where his entire outlook on sailing changed dramatically.

?It just gave me another outlook on sailing all together,? he added. ?That?s where I pretty much got hooked on sailing competitively.

?We competed against other schools every weekend or during the week in what they called team racing in the 420s.?

However, Smith?s sailing career was put on hold for two years when he enrolled at Lynn University located north of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

?I actually played soccer for my college and probably spent more time on the beach learning how to surf and have a really good time,? he added.

It was a trend that continued once Smith graduated in 1979 and returned to Bermuda.

?I spent a few years bouncing around not settled down or really locked into any particular job,? he said. ?And it was a lot of fun and just a phase I went through.?

Yet in between, Smith still managed to teach sailing and compete in the Sunfish.

?I never really left the Sunfish and when I came back for holidays and stuff I would race,? he added. ?And then in the 1980s I really began to get more involved. I figured I?d just stick to it.?

After finishing runner up on several occasions at the Sunfish Worlds, Smith put Bermuda on the map five years later when he won the same event on local surf and repeated the achievement again in 1998 and 2003 in Sayville, Long Island and St. Maarten.

?In 1994 the Sunfish worlds came to Bermuda and that?s when I won my first Sunfish Worlds Championship,? Smith said.

?Winning the worlds here in Bermuda was definitely a great feeling. After finishing runner up in 1987, ?93, ?96 and ?97 . . . to get that first win in Bermuda was a great feeling.

?Just winning a world championship is difficult because you go there and there?s ten to 15 sailors that are potential winners. And sometimes things go right for you and just click and you make few mistakes and then it (winning) just happens.

?I really don?t know what to say because sometimes you just have a little bit of luck on your side and other times you just need it. I think I was just in the right place at the right time and very fortunate to win.

?The last day (of the regatta) we had a hurricane passing to the west of us (Bermuda) and the winds that day were probably 20 to 25 knots and we had to do three races and the opening was race was almost a disaster. I didn?t think that I?d be able to pull it off after the opening race and then we came in and had a little break and the course was brought in a little closer to shore and when we went back out I just had a perfect day.

?And it was enough for me to leapfrog the leader (Eduardo Cordeiro) who was the defending champion at the time. We have had so many close regattas between us I think most of the regattas I?ve finished second in he?s actually won. And two or three of those regattas I?ve had led going into the last day.

?So I?ve not only won three (Sunfish worlds) but also come very close quite a few times.?

Smith is also a two-time recipient of the Male Athlete of the Year Award.

?I?ve just been quite fortunate and very blessed in a way that I?ve been able to compete at this level,? he said. ?I did lots of different things prior to winning that first worlds. I did a lot of Snipe sailing out here at Spanish Point Boat Club.

?The owners of the club down at Harrington sold the property and I think the club was pretty much dissolved and a few sailors came up here (Spanish Point) and continued to sail the Sunfish. But the class itself is really not as buoyant as it once used to be with competitors here locally.?

Smith is also a past European and North American Sunfish champion and runner up in the Caribbean Laser Championship and South American and Caribbean Championships.

He also represented Bermuda at the 1996 Olympic Games in Savannah, Georgia and competed in both Lasers and the Sunfish at the Pan Am Games.

Smith competed in the Lasers at the Pan Am Games in ?87, ?91 and ?95 and the Sunfish for the first time in 1999 when the class was first introduced to the event.

?I spent a lot of years sailing in the Laser because it is a more physically demanding boat, and I think that?s what helped to bring my level of sailing up in the Sunfish class. Without that I may not have brought my level to what it is today.

?I still compete in the Laser locally and use it basically as a fitness and training boat here. But what I do a lot of times is I?ll jump in the Sunfish and go and race against others because I don?t have many Sunfish rivals on the island who will actually come out and compete like that anymore.

?I have to go overseas and do regattas in the Sunfish or just a lot of the times sail against one or two people here locally or against the Lasers.

?So doing the Lasers has really helped my boat handling and tactical skills because the boats are very even, very similar to a Sunfish.?

In 1990 Smith won a bronze medal sailing in the Laser at the CAC Games in Mexico.

?We sent a team to Mexico and we came out there with three medals,? he added. ?I?ve had a lot of great times sailing like doing the Olympics in 1996. I didn?t have the best regatta there, but I got to compete in the Olympics.

?The Olympics is another level and the amount of money that is involved and funding that a sailor really needs to really get to that level, they need to become almost semi-professional or a professional sailor. We have a lot of local sailors and talented athletes in Bermuda who have all tried to get to that level and all found out that the money and time involved ? if you are not a full-time professional ? it?s very difficult to actually go there and try and compete at a high level.

?So after doing the Olympics I said ?I?m not going to do it again? because basically the funding wasn?t there.?

Instead, Smith has his eye set on next year?s Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he hopes to bow out as a winner in the Sunfish class.

Smith qualified for next year?s regatta at the North American Championships last month.

?Now that I?ve got that (qualification) out of the way and I have about a year to get myself prepared. I know it?s going to be difficult because now we have countries that never before took part in the Sunfish class, and I think it?s good. So internationally I?ve seen the class grow,? Smith said.

The veteran skipper has also observed the sport grow steadily locally, and reckons it won?t be long before a Bermudian skipper medals at a major regatta or even the Olympics.

?I think today the kids in these junior sailing programmes are receiving top level coaching,? Smith added. ?We?re bringing in international coaches here at the Optimist level and 420 level and kids are going overseas and taking part in clinics and doing a lot more international regattas at younger ages.

?And the exposure that they are getting today is going to give them the real potential to medal at major regattas.

?So if it?s not going to be Peter Bromby then there are kids out there now coming out of these programmes who, with the correct funding and picking the correct class, also have the potential to compete really well.?