Though he earned valuable rankings points and enough money to treat his dad to a "Thank You" dinner, Tyler Butterfield returned from his Puerto Rico triathlon displeased with a key component of his race.

The 19-year-old is concerned that, despite countless hours of training, he is not swimming as fast as other professional triathletes and this is hampering him from performing even better than he has so far.

"Nothing went wrong, I'm just not fast enough. I wasn't pleased that I didn't make the first or the second pack (of swimmers out of the water). I was in the third pack," explained Butterfield, adding that he had a strong bike and a good run to capture tenth place (out of 34 men) overall (1:53.10 hours) in the International Triathlon Union's Caribbean Cup on Sunday.

It's frustrating, he acknowledged, that his swim is still not as consistently strong as he would like though he has been training steadfastly and has recorded some good times in this discipline lately, including at the St. Anthony's Triathlon in April.

"There was less competition here so I should have had a better swim but I had a worse swim," he said.

If his swim not let him down, he surmised he might have been able to give an even better account of himself since he would not have had to work as hard on the bike to catch the leaders.

Butterfield was among a group of six competitors who worked their way through those ahead of them until they caught the lead pack with about 5km left (to bike). The race, which was held in the city of Rincon, featured a 1,500 swim, a 40km bike and a 10km run.

"Apart from the swim things went pretty well. They paid down to the top ten and ITU points were awarded. It wasn't much though - just $80 (for tenth place).

"There wasn't much money in this race but it's better than nothing.

"I said I was going to come home and buy my dad dinner for getting me the plane ticket down there," said Butterfield whose world ranking should rise with the 99 points he received for his position.

The Bermudian, who was ranked 318th in the world in the latest ITU ranking - released on June 4 - is still trying to arrange a training stint in California. If that does not materialise he will try to compete in other triathlons while continuing his training here for next month's Commonwealth Games.